Hot Springs and Toxic Rubies
by Mizar31
Summary: A young woman was attacked in a hotel and all the evidence say that it was an accident. When the CBI is engaged it soon is clear that there is more to the case; and to solve it they decide to start an undercover - but Jane is left behind.
1. Chapter 1

_**Hot Springs and Toxic Rubies **_

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or the general idea of "the Mentalist". I wrote this story only for fun and do not want to make money with it. I am not a native English speaker/writer, but I tried my best, so that everyone who reads these lines will enjoy it too. 

Chapter 1: On vacation without me?

It was beautiful, and there were almost no words to describe it properly. Slowly the sun sank to the horizon, it´s color being first orange, then light red, and finally, when it touched the sea´s surface, as red as a ruby. The air was still and there was no wind; the soft splash of the waves mixed up with the cry of some lonely sea bird. The palm trees swayed in a light sea breeze, it was pure harmony.

Caren de Palmer was a daughter out of a good house. She had never been in any situation that she did not like, and she did not know how it does feel, if you haven´t got enough money. But that had not made her conceited; despite of the fact that she could afford everything she wished to, she was as friendly and moderate as one could be.

She loved it to go jogging in the dusk, and not even now, in her honeymoon, she wanted to quit with it. And it was wonderful. The bit hotel area where she and her new husband lived lay at the western side of the island, which left a free look into the western sky. Nearly all day it was sunny at the beach, and at sunset time most of the couples that spent their holidays here went up at the little cliff at the northern side of the bay – this was called the "Sundown rock". Here you could stand a little bit above it all and see the sun until the last rim vanished behind the horizon. The whole bay area was in private property of the hotel, and this place was as quiet and as relaxing as it could be.

All cars were left outside at the big parking lot, inside the hotel area only electric vehicles were allowed, such as the e-buggies that were used at the small golfing area at the eastern side of the hotel complex. Whoever wished to do so could rent a bike or a segway vehicle, or just walk between the flowers and the palms, the little bushes, the othe small arrangements of garden-art, and the different hotel buildings.

Caren had been running up to the "Sundown rock" and watched the sunset, but whilst a lot of the other couples now slowly went to the hotel restaurant, she took the small trail downwards at the other, the northern side of the cliff, where a small depression lay between this and another cliff which was a little bit wilder and rockier than the "Sundown rock" where the hotel owners had made a flat plateau out of the stone. This area also belonged to the hotel, and the path that she followed now would turn about a hundred and fifty yards up the cliff at the outer fence of the private property in a smooth curve and lead back through the hotel´s garden to the tennis court. It was the longest run one could take in this area, but she knew that she was fast and would finish her round before the dinner time started. She would have enough time to take a shower and dress up, and then go to the big restaurant with her loving husband.

But suddenly she stopped, because she heard a whispered conversation. It was not yelling or screaming, but still hissing and unfriendly, maybe some kind of upset. Sure those voices belonged to hectic persons, one male, one female, and they were drifting to her from an area a little bit below of her… from a place was in the bay between the rocks.

She smiled – a little bit of curiosity must be allowed, even if she was in her honeymoon. So she did not run on straight ahead, but turned left to the seashore. There was a flight of stairs carved directly into the black, volcanic stone, which led to a very special attraction in this hotel. One could say that this holiday resort was famous for this spot.

It was a hot-spring-sea-bath, fed by a submarine hot spring. Along the rocky coastline of this small bay the hotel owners had built five little bath pools directly out of the black, volcanic stone; each one constructed in a way that you could not see the ongoing in the other four – and if the persons there talked at low voice, one could not even hear them, the sound of the waves and the wind was loud enough. You could feel really alone and relaxed there, and the water in the small, stony coves was round about body heat, if one wished it the pipe valve could be opened a little bit more, if – to get it a little bit hotter. The best time to go here was in the early evening like now, and if you want to use them you would need a reservation.

Caren went down and smelled the slightly sulfuric odor – the smell did not disturb, it was only a little bit more intense than usual.

Who could it be? Who was arguing there? She hoped so much that it would be that "always-nose-up" Betty and her "oh so loved" husband. She knew her from the fitness room, and disliked her since the first time they had talked. _Oh, she and her husband were the perfect couple, never fighting, never arguing, all in harmony, blah, blah, blah_. That would be a story, seeing them in the middle of a fight.

But it was not what Caren expected. The people down there were not guests, it seemed to her, that they both wore the uniforms of the hotel staff, but it was getting dark very fast now, no chance to see their faces or anything else. But one thing she noticed for sure: They were carrying a third person, unconscious or worse, between them, and a second person was still face down in the middle of one of the small pools.

And in the next second a heavy hit smashed against the side of her head, she toppled over, but before she could fall down by herself, the unknown person behind her grabbed hold of her hair and took care, that her head hit the rocky ground in full speed.

Senior Agent Teresa Lisbon had enough from being yelled at. She had been listening to the shrill voice of the woman on the telephone for half an hour now and sighed – in the whole conversation she had had only two or three words until now; and these were »Agent Lisbon speaking.«

Desperately she looked out of her bureau window for some help, but it was impossible to try to reach director Bertram. Also, she did not like Bertram that much, after what he´d said and done after the Red John affair, but nevertheless, he was the Director of the CBI. It had been him who had first explained her that the client wanted only the best team. Despite all complains that the unit got on record because of Jane´s unorthodox behavior; they still were the team with the best case-solved-rate in the CBI.

_So blame Bertram, for goodness sake_; she thought, and tried to listen to the phone caller again. The woman was no one less than Bettina Wilder, being the wife of the prosecuting attorney of Los Angeles County, Terrence Wilder. She had all rights to call for the CBI if she wanted to, but Teresa had to explain her that her wish was nearly impossible. But Lisbon had no chance to cut in, the other woman just kept on pleading, accusing, yelling and commanding; then she started to repeat some details, and cried even louder.

Finally it was enough. Lisbon had listened to the story for about two and a half times now: »Ma´am.« she said with a deep, calm voice. »Let us meet, and you explain us all your sorrows from eye to eye. Would this be ok with you? If we start right now, we could be with you at any time tomorrow morning. We´ll catch the soonest flight, and will be there for you as fast as possible. Yes?«

For a second the woman on the other end of the line thought about this proposal, then she accepted: »Yes. Please come here. At least I can get a look at your whole team. My driver will be waiting at Hilo airport at any time, to welcome you, even if he has to wait until tomorrow morning. I wish to see you as soon as possible.«

Lisbon replied: »But Ma´am, you must know one thing. We are the _California_ Bureau of Investigation and have no rights to investigate in another State. If you want us to take over the case, there must be some official permission form. Even if the victim is a citizen of California, there is much interfering bureaucracy.«

The woman seemed to understand: »I will look after that. You will get the permission. Come soon.« She hang up and left no room for any reasonable protest.

Teresa shook her head. The last few minutes had been so easy and full of clear understanding, that she could hardly believe that she´d talked to the same person who had been nearly crying off her ear before. But now she had another problem now; they had to prepare to leave the office as fast as possible.

She rushed outside her own buero to her team and ordered: »Bring everything you need for report and the starter pack for a crime investigation. Take everything you need with you for at least three days and nights out; maybe longer. We´re heading off to Hilo.« She stopped, because her team and also the other agents that were present looked at her in awe. Teresa smiled a little bit, and then she continued: »Van Pelt, ere you ask, _yes_, I want you to get us the tickets for the earliest possible plane. After we know our departure time you may all go home and get your private suitcases ready. We meet one and a half hour before departure at Sac Airport.«

Grace Van Pelt was already working and said: »There´s a plane from AA on five fifteen pm with an intermediate at L.A., but then directly to Hilo. Another line would be out of Frisco at eight thirty to Honolulu; from there we could surely get another connection to Hilo with the first plane on the morning. They all got seats. Will we get five fifteen over L.A.? I think we would be there earlier.«

Lisbon looked round, in the faces of Cho and Rigsby, then she nodded: »Its two now, of course we get five fifteen. Reserve the tickets; we pay them directly at the counter, when we get them. Speed up - and meet at the airport check in at a quarter to four pm. That´s all.«

»And would you tell us what this is all about?« Rigsby asked. »Why are we going to Hawaii? That's out of our bounds. Or is this a short-circuit-vacation-thing?«

Lisbon told him: »Why are you still on your place? Go and pack the equipment! We´ll talk as soon as we´ve checked in, then we´ve got plenty of time. Summarize: We have to be at Hilo by tomorrow morning, better tonight. There is Bettina Wilder, wife of the prosecuting attorney Terrence Wilder waiting for us. The director wants us to do everything that is possible to help the woman; or at least talk to her. Her daughter Caren had an accident four days ago, but she does not believe that it really _was_ an accident.«

That was all she told them. They started to work, and only half an hour later they could leave the CBI to get their personal belongings. No one was late at the airport and for luck the check-line was not very long. They had a domestic flight and no intention to buy anything in duty free shops, so they had enough time to sit down in a coffee shop to discuss the case again; this time to get more details.

Lisbon started: »Early this afternoon Director Bertram called me. Mrs. Wilder wants a CBI team to investigate the mishap of her daughter; Caren. As I told you before she is somewhat convinced that it was not a mere accident.«

Van Pelt asked: »An accident? Has Mrs. Wilder got specific suspicions that it was some kind of "forced" accident? Or did the local police find something strange? What happened?«

»Yeah, usually we don´t take over accidents, but…« Lisbon continued. »But she insists on it, even if there is no proof that it wasn´t one. Caren de Palmer was in her honeymoon, and the officials at their vacation site said, that she fell down while she was jogging, and hit the ground with her head so badly, that she is in a deep coma state since. She is not dead – but as good as, they have her in ICU at the Hilo General Hospital. The doctors say she´s got only a ten percent chance that she´ll ever wake up again. She was found by her own husband Evan, who knew that she liked it to go jogging at sunset time. The local police and the husband informed the family, the Wilders. They all said, that it must have been an accident. Caren lay on a rocky path and the light there was really bad – one false step and you stumble. Unfortunately for the police report, Evan moved her from the place that she actually fell down to a rather plain part of the path. He is a doctor – cosmetic surgeon, to be correct, that Mister de Palmer. He tried to help her with first aid. I fully understand his attempt to help his wife, but he destroyed all reliable traces while he tried to save her. There was not much to see either, the rocks there are as black as night.«

»Seems to be not that kind of case that we usually work on.« Cho said.

Lisbon was his opinion: »Yes, of course not. But Mrs. Wilder insists; she says that maybe someone attacked her daughter, whether to rob her, or worse, and that she fell because of the attacker. She wants to speak to us personally, and then we have to do something. But remember, we cannot investigate outside of California without a special permission. That´s difficult.«

»What will we do then?« Rigsby asked.

»Mrs. Wilder and her husband try to get a permission form for us, but this is their business. It´s like waiting for a search warrant. We can only get active if we get this special permission. Otherwise we can only be like consultants for the local law enforcement, but not really investigating.« Lisbon answered. She looked round. »By the word of _consultant_, where´s Jane? He is not here. That's strange, don't you think?«

Van Pelt sighed: »Oh no, we forgot him at the HQ…«

Cho shook his head: »He wasn´t there when we left.«

Lisbon asked: »Did anyone try to call him? I must say, I didn´t try.«

Rigsby said: »I tried, but his phone was still switched off, to my surprise. He left hours ago, before lunch … told something about a Doc, where he needs to go…«

»Jane at a Doc´s house?« Grace asked in wonder. »He never goes to a doctor. He hates them.« She looked at Rigsby: »Did he tell you why?«

Wayne thought about it for a while, then he answered: »I think I remember that he said something like that he must visit that Doc as soon as possible.«

»But he did not look ill or something, did he?« Lisbon replied. »He was never sick since I know him. He´s all-right, I think. As soon as we have our stopover in L.A., I´ll call him. It's too late now, we have boarding time. He´ll be fine a few hours without us.«

She was right, the plane to L.A. was ready to board now, and no half hour later they departed. It was not a long flight; they touched down in Los Angeles not a long time later.

As soon as they had left the plane to change to that one that was going to Hilo, Lisbon took out her cell-phone and called Jane. When he answered, his voice sounded like the whimper of a left-behind puppy. She perfectly knew that he was only playing, but nevertheless she smiled. He was a very good player if he wanted to.

»Lisbon?« he asked. »Where are you all? I came back and everyone was gone, without any sign or word? It was Agent Barnett, who told me that you all left for the airport. Do you know how it feels like to be left behind like an empty chocolate-candy-box? Any excuses?«

»Yes, we had to catch the first flight to Hilo.«

Jane sighed: »I see, I see. You took the first chance to go on a vacation without me.«

»No, I never would. It's maybe about a new case. A big "maybe", because we still do not know whether we can get to work in Hawaii State or not.«

Patrick was still low at voice: »Ah, I see. If you want, tell me what it is all about, when you arrive. Have a good time there.«

This really made Lisbon wonder; she´d never expected him to stay behind without any complain. »Yes, of course I will tell you. But… Jane, there is another plane to Hawaii today. There´s an eight thirty plane from Frisco to Honolulu; you can surely change there to get a Hawaiian Line to Hilo. I would be happy to see you there.« She sighed. »You are our consultant, and part of the team… please come, okay?«

»I´ll think about it.« Jane said, still not sounding as usual. »I could need a few days off now but there is still that thing about the place I must go to…« he stopped. »Um, whatever. Hawaii would be nice, for a while. See you there.«

Lisbon answered: »See you.« She switched off her telephone again and put it back in her pocket. »He´ll be with us.« she informed the others, then she asked: »Which Gate?«

»D Thirty. Flight AA two-nine-seven.« Grace said. »We can go there right now. For goodness sake, it doesn´t seem to have a delay.« Soon they were surrounded by many people who seemed to go on holidays; happy families, some couples, older folk, surfers and a photographer-safari group, two dozen or more business-people, and a few handful of persons who lived in Hawaii and just flew home. The most of the bureaus and office buildings of Hawaii State was in Honolulu and its surrounding area on the island of Oahu; but Hilo was the capital of the biggest island, Hawaii. About five hours of flight lay before them. Still no one knew if there was a case waiting for them in Hilo, or if they only were there to tell the client that there was nothing to do.

Five hours of flight across the endless blue of the Pacific Ocean – the sky was clear and the sunset seemed to be as slow as never before, but that was easy to understand; they were flying in western direction and had two hours of time difference between L.A. and Hawaii. Nevertheless it was dark as they arrived. Lisbon tried to get a look at the screen in the arrival area, but there were only ten more planes expected to touch down this evening, after that the airport was closed for the night. The earliest plane from Honolulu was expected at seven a.m., that meant Jane would come the next day.

They did not have to pick up big luggage, so they could leave the luggage claim behind and stepped out in the loud and busy arrival hall. Many people were waiting there for their relatives, some tourist agents expected their guests to guide them to the busses, and many cab drivers were there to pick up the passengers.

To the team´s surprise, there was one man who held a cardboard in his hands with the big letters CBI on it. This must be the driver of Mrs. Wilder, so they changed direction towards him. »California Bureau of Investigation.« Teresa said, as they were next to him. »The Agents Van Pelt, Cho, and Rigsby. I am Senior Agent Lisbon.«

»Good evening.« the tall, muscular built man said. He was Hawaiian-American, and smiled. »May I take the ladies bags?«

Lisbon thanked him: »You don´t have to.«

»Oh, I insist, it is my job. Don´t wonder when we go outside, it has been a hot day and we had a little thunderstorm one hour before your plane arrived.«

Although they tried to be prepared, the heavy tropical air mixed up with some distinct sea smell and the noises of the airport left them stunned as soon they had left the climate controlled airport hall. The driver took Lisbon´s and Van Pelt´s trolleys and carried them to a black limousine-like car that was waiting for them. It was not as big as a VIP limousine, but they had enough seating place in the passenger cabin; one bench was built in driving direction, the other one against it. They sat down fast and the driver took his place after had put the luggage in the trunk. He lowered the sheet of glass that separated the driver´s room from the passenger cabin and said: »Mrs. Wilder has reserved you rooms in the _Heart of Hilo_ Hotel. You are invited to live the first night on her expense.«

»No.« Lisbon cut in. »We cannot accept this offer. I know she meant it well, but we must not give the impression that we can be… let´s say, venal. It's a hard word, I know, but we´ll explain it to Mrs. Wilder tomorrow.«

The driver nodded, and shut the glass. About fifteen minutes later they were at the _Heart of Hilo_ Hotel, and their luggage was put on the hotel boy´s trolley by the driver. He said at the good-bye. »Mrs. Wilder bade me to pick you up at nine a.m. tomorrow morning. You will meet her at the Hilo General Hospital.«

Lisbon nodded, she had no further comments to this plan; it was inevitable to meet her and why not at the terms that she had set. »How much for the transport?« she asked the driver. »And don´t tell me that it is going on the expense of Mrs. Wilder. I pay it.«

In the end they all paid a quarter of the transport fee, then the driver went back to his car and turned round.

The rooms were nice; not big, but more than ok, and each one had a balcony with a good sea view. Teresa looked once again at the few file pages that she had already written on that case. It was all that she knew from the telephone call and two pages of data that Van Pelt had found on Caren de Palmer, former Wilkins, on the network. They had all read the papers while they were still flying, and now there was nothing more to do right now. Maybe that this was only an excuse, but Lisbon wished to go for a long walk. She called the others on the hotel phone: »It is ok if you want to use the rest of the evening for your own.« she told them. »We meet tomorrow morning at the breakfast.«

She left the room and was soon walking on the beach with bare feet. The scent in the air was wonderful and for one moment she really felt like holidays. Around midnight she was in her room again and looked at her phone. Jane had left a message, he was on the plane from San Francisco to Honolulu, but at this time he was not there for sure. But at least he was on his way. Teresa turned the light off and tried to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Detective John Miller

The next morning came too early. Lisbon´s rhythm was still on Sacramento time and noticed with a sigh that she could still sleep for one and a half hours. But she was not the only one that suffered from the jet lag. Van Pelt had the room next to her and Teresa found her sitting at the balcony with a cup of tea and waiting for the sunset.

»May I join?« she asked and set down at her balcony chair.

»Of course, boss.« Grace looked out on the ocean for a while. The faintest color of a celestial salmon pink started to enlighten small clouds that were far out at the sea. Suddenly the younger Agent began to speak again: »You know what… I… I know we are not discussing personal things here, but… it seems to me the first time that I can really enjoy a sunrise again. Since… since that happened.«

Lisbon smiled softly and said: »I can understand you. Take your time. I don´t say that time heals all wounds, but… you learn to live with them.«

They fell silent again and watched the sunrise; it was wonderful; they could see the sun climbing from the first little blink of light to her full appearance through the dim morning dust that lay on the ocean.

»You can say what you want, you never get such a sunrise in California.« Lisbon finally said, and stood up. »Let´s get ready for breakfast. Before we go to Mrs. Wilders, I want you all together for a little briefing, ok? A good, short briefing at a well equipped breakfast table should do it, I think.«

Van Pelt smiled and also went in her room.

To Teresa´s surprise she had got an SMS from Jane in the meantime, a short text, telling her: »Please don´t wait for me today.«

At first she put her phone away again, but while she was in the bathroom, she started to think about it: She was worried because Jane was not acting as usual, and about that doctor he was. As thoughts like to do it when you start to think too much, a silent but steady nag uneased her mind. So she phoned him, but he did not pick up the call at once, she had to dial twice, then he answered.

»Yes, this is Jane, sleeping…«

»Why don´t you come on a today's plane? We gonna meet Mrs. Wilder this morning and maybe she tells us something important.«

He answered: »I can´t. Even if I´d try I´d miss the morning plane to Hilo, but promise I´ll be at your place tomorrow. Your hotel is…?«

»The _Heart of Hilo_. What´s up with you? I can tell from your voice that you haven´t been sleeping at all. And now you need a day off? You never need a day off.«

»I do now, but it is all right – it will be all right, though. I just can´t stand this up-and –down-and-left-and-right-and-swoosh-and-roar-"thing" on board of a plane right now. I´ll be happy to listen to the story tomorrow, ok?«

Lisbon ended the call: »As you wish. I will tell you tomorrow.« she was still not pleased with his answer, but if he wanted to be as stubborn as ever… »See you.«

She dressed up and went down to the hotel restaurant. Rigsby was already there at a table; the waiter came as soon as Lisbon had also taken her seat. »Coffee please.« she said.

Ten minutes later they were all together and had their breakfast on their plates. Lisbon started the little briefing: »We all know the facts about the persons we are dealing with, therefore just a short brainstorm now. Mr. Terrence Wilder is prosecuting attorney of L.A. County, his wife Bettina an exclusive estate agent. Their only child, Caren, married Mister Evan de Palmer; who is a cosmetic surgeon, only two weeks ago. All of them have no reports, not even a traffic offence. Good situated people, who used to get what they want, I think, but don´t be prejudiced. We will listen to all of Mrs. Wilder´s words with open ears and mind. We´ll check the medical file, the report of the policemen and the paramedic's statement. We gonna ask her husband about the circumstances, but… remember one thing. We must not investigate on our own. So long we are only _consultants_ of Mrs. Wilder and we´ll work together with the local PD. We can take over, if we get a special permission that authorizes us. I will tell all this to Mrs. Wilder too.«

Cho asked: »And what if the local police doesn´t want us to take over? Should we only stay and help them as consultants, that Mrs. Wilder had engaged?«

Lisbon replied: »I do not know if this is possible. Maybe it is out of bounds for official law enforcement to be only on consulting-status. I never was in that situation before. It may also be possible that we are called back to Sacramento at once; but then I fear that the woman will be very disappointed.«

Rigsby said: »Then let´s just hope that the prosecuting attorney got some influence, maybe he could set things right.«

Van Pelt added: »Or that this not really a case… it could still be that this was an accident. A bad, horrible accident, but no attack.«

»Hm.« Teresa was not sure. »We´ll know soon. Let´s eat now and then we´ll go.«

At nine a.m. sharp they were at the hotel entrance, where the driver of Mrs. Wilder was already waiting. After about fifteen minutes later they were at the front gate of the Hilo General Hospital. They could not fight it: none of them liked the atmosphere of hospitals very much, but they must cope with it. This house was fine, flowers and scents all around, but still a hospital. Mrs. Wilder was awaiting them in a visitor´s room next to the Intensive Care Unit. There was no one else there at the moment, and the woman had a mix of impressions on her face – great worries and pain about the critical state of her daughter, and some distinct kind of furiousness, that one has if you want something but just don´t get it.

»You are here.« she said as a welcome. She did not sound friendly, but neither hard, just like they had expected. »I am glad that you came so fast.«

Lisbon told her the names of the others and herself, than they sat down at a table, but Mrs. Wilder did not sit for long, she jumped to her feet again, when she started to speak.

»My daughter is a good runner, good at foot, she doesn´t lose her balance so easy, I mean, only by one false step. We had her in ballet training when she was a girl and she used to try out some of the figures still. If she needs to, she could stand only on the tip of her toes. And why should she run to the cliffs at night? Evan said she made her jogging round along the fence path, and the fence path is about fifty five yards aside the place where she was found. She was near the stairs to the hot springs cove, where they have only dim light because of privacy. She would never go jogging there… I am sure that she was attacked by someone who wanted to harm her – maybe to rape her, and this person forced to go to this dark place. The officials here have agreed to investigate this possibility after my bidding, but as we are citizens of the State of California I want you to work on this case.«

Lisbon tried to calm her down: »We will do what we can, Ma´am, but we need to talk to the local law enforcement first. Please tell me the name of the head of the policemen who are working on this case. My colleagues will contact them. We would need their reports too. Meanwhile, if the doctors and you, as a responsible adult, allow it, we would start with taking a look at the medical file, and if possible, at your daughter for a moment.«

Mrs. Wilder shook her head: »They won´t let you in to her, you can only watch her through the glass window. They don´t let me in very often, and if, then I have to wash and dress up as if I was ready for a surgery. She´s very instable. They had to remove a part of her skull, to ease the swelling of the brain…« now she started to cry, but she pulled herself together as fast as she could. »Yes. Take a look at the medical file. I´ll get you Doctor Hue, she is her main responsible. The name of the local detective is Miller. Detective John Miller.«

»Cho?« Lisbon commanded. »Would you please…?«

»I´m on it.« with these words he went out of the room.

Teresa turned to Mrs. Wilder again: »You told me on the phone that you will try to get some permission form that we can start to work here properly. As long as this official paper does not exist, we can only help you as consultants. We have no right to question or arrest someone without the presence of the local police. This could be difficult at some points.«

Mrs. Wilder nodded: »I know. I called my husband yesterday and he said he´ll do what he can. He would have called me if there is something new to this. Would you now please concentrate on the medical file? I as responsible family member of Caren allow it. Please read it. I want to hear what you think about it, with all your experience.«

Lisbon said to Rigsby: »Have a look-a-round for Doctor Hue and the file. Van Pelt, Mrs. Wilder, would you mind to accompany me now to the victim, I mean, Caren, of course?«

The three of them went in the ICU and fell silent at an instant. There were six separate rooms, three on each side of the corridor, where visitors were allowed. Caren was in the second one, and as soon as her mother had seen her, she started to cry again. It was an oppressive view. The life of the young woman was bound to a machine that breathed for her and one that kept her heart going; pain killers, intravenous nutrition and catheters. Cables and wires were everywhere and her head was bandaged very thick.

She was not covered by a common blanket but there seemed to be a heating mattress beyond her. Lisbon and Van Pelt looked at her, being in that deep coma state, in silence. Surely she would die without the help of the machines. But there was another thing.

»She´s got no marks on her that looked like as if she tried to defense herself.« Grace said. »We are not close enough to tell definitely, but she seems totally unscathed despite of the severe hurts on her head. Did you notice anything, Mrs. Wilder? Broken fingernails, scratches at the skin, maybe bruises, or bumps, some marks at the throat? Anything?«

Mrs. Wilder shook her head: »No, nothing. I asked the doctors about it, when it first came to my mind that maybe someone tried to do her any harm… but… no.«

Lisbon frowned: »Well, that is strange indeed. Even if it _was_ an accident, she would have somehow tried to catch the fall, with hands, knees, or elbows. It´s out of instinct, reflex you could call it, to protect the head and spine. But if she did not try to keep her from hitting ground exactly with her head, it must have happened either very fast or… or against her will. I start to believe that this was no common accident, Mrs. Wilder.«

»I also wondered about that.« a female voice suddenly said besides them. They looked at the person and found an almost native Hawaiian woman clad in a doctor´s outfit. The name tag presented her as Dr. Hoanah Hue. She stretched out her hand to greet Lisbon and Van Pelt, then she explained: »You can of course read the medical file, if her mother gives you the permission. I´ve got it here.« She handed it to Van Pelt. »It contains all medical treatment that she got and everything that we found out during the operation. Also there are reports of the paramedics and the emergency doctors that treated her first; and of the chopper doc that accompanied her into our house.« She cleared her throat.

»But the main thing is, that she´s very critical. The severe hurts only appear at her head and one or two little scratches from the stony underground at her right shoulder, but this would be the most likely part of the body that hits also the ground if the head is down. Nothing else, no bruise or sprain on her feet that may have caused her to stumble, and no signs that she attempted to prevent the worst. Also no signs that there was a fight before her accident, like that someone was trying to drag her away. The only other thing is …« She reached over to Van Pelt and took the medical file back for a moment, to take out a photo. It showed the gravely wounded head of Caren. Her hair was shaved and one could clearly see the big bloody area that covered her right temporal bone. The photo must have been taken shortly before the operation.

»You see this here, at the other side of her head, a little bit more backwards? There is another wound, like a hit-mark, but on a place where the skull bone is really hard. It is not cracked there, but if it really was a blow or a hit, it could cause immediate unconsciousness. I guess, you know, what I want to say? The same thing I told Detective Miller: If that wound was the first one, she possibly fell down unconscious; and exactly that ankle that you need to hit ground with the right side of your forehead.«

Van Pelt nodded: »That would explain why she did not try to catch the fall. Someone knocked her down.«

The doctor said: »And maybe "helped" her falling down faster by an additional push or blow or something. The severeness of the broken skull doesn´t fit a simple fall, the body must have been moving faster and with more might than it would usually. Out of my experience and the medical evidence I would say that Mrs. Wilder is not far from being right with her suspicion. But this is only my opinion; according to the report of the police there are many signs that it was only an accident. Maybe she fell down and hit her head at the left side, and was then disoriented and headed off to the wrong direction, straight to the rocks, where she fell a second time. This could also be possible.«

Lisbon proposed: »We will read the med rep now, and collect whatever may be a clue for the non-accident-these, and also everything that may count on the accident-these. As soon as Cho calls about Detective Miller, we will go and see him. Let´s hope that we are ready with the medical report by then. That would save us time.«

They sat down in the visitors lounge again, but this time Mrs. Wilder was not with them. She could not stand it to listen to the medical report. She stayed with her daughter, but Dr. Hue was there to answer questions.

Soon they were ready, and it was clear to Rigsby, Van Pelt and Lisbon, that they were dealing with a very grave physical state of Caren de Palmer. It might as well be a murder investigation. The body of the victim was only alive because of the machines. She could not breathe on her own and also the heartbeat was very weak without the constant presence of a pacemaker. Her EEG also showed only the faintest sign of brain activity.

»I don´t expect that she´ll ever wake up again.« Dr. Hue confessed. »Don´t think that we are cruel or greedy to her family, because I told Mrs. Wilder that there is still a ten percent chance that she´ll make it up to good. The chance is much lower I fear. It is hard to tell now what will happen if the swelling of the brain decreases… and if it does go better we still do not know what damage she´ll hold back.«

Lisbon shook her head: »That's awful, really. Young woman, twenty-three of age, just married… where is her husband, by the way, isn´t he here?«

»He was here, as fast as one cold drive from the west coast to Hilo.« said Dr. Hue. »But after a while he started to break up with her mother. Not really heavy, but they debated over the machines – if they should let her go, or if she should live just by the machines. He´s out, in a hotel I think, but he has been her for the first three days without any interruption. He loves her much, and he is really down. One time we doctors thought of giving him a bed here and something to sleep, but he wouldn´t let us. Her mother came one day after we had her here, and yesterday, after we had her out of the second operation they started to fight. He thought it was best to go.«

Grace was concerned: »You think it was ok to let him? Maybe he´s up to something.«

»Like suicide? No, I don´t think.« Dr. Hue said. »He is in a shock state, but he is mentally stable. He won´t hurt himself. He talked to our House-Psychiatrist before he left.«

»We have to visit him.« Rigsby said. »Did he leave any address?«

»Of course. His Hotel is the_ Bay Lodge_, and this…« she wrote a number on a sheet of paper, »is his phone number. We should call him if there was any difference in Caren´s medical status.« She cleared her breath. »He wants to be here to say _Goodbye_.«

Lisbon turned to her colleague: »Would you please, Rigsby…«

»I am on my way.« he stood up, but this moment Lisbon´s cell phone started to ring and she hold him back. »Wait a sec, it´s Cho.«

She listened to what her other agent had to say, and it seemed to be a rather long thing to discuss. Lisbon confirmed with an: »Good.« and hung up. Then she turned to Rigsby and Van Pelt: »We´ve got some sort of permission. Dr. Hue, would you please be so kind and get us Mrs. Wilder here?«

The doctor nodded and left the room.

While they were alone, Lisbon explained fast: »We have the permission to take an official part in the investigation, but we have to cooperate with the local police. We have to share all our news with them. Detective Miller will work on this with us. We have the rights to arrest people and, in case of need, also to use our weapons, but at every official interrogation there has to be a local officer present.«

That moment the door was opened and Mrs. Wilder stepped in: »What?« she asked.

Lisbon told her: »Your husband must have moved heaven and earth, and he got us a permission form that allows us to start the investigation. The main argument is that you are citizens of California and only on vacation, with no permanent residence known in Hawaii State. We are working on your case. But this also means that we cannot give away the information we get so easy. We must keep some things back, especially when we think that it might scare the guilty person away – if there was one. You agree to that?«

»I agree.« Mrs. Wilder said at once. »Please find out what happened to Caren.«

Lisbon ordered Rigsby: »Now you can go and visit the husband, Mr. Evan de Palmer. Ask him about the circumstances when he found his wife. I will go to the Hilo Police Department now to meet Cho and, so I hope, Detective Miller. Van Pelt, please try to get doctor Hues permission to go inside the ICU to take a closer look at Caren. Maybe there was something they did not think of.«

Mrs. Wilder said: »I will look that she can go in the ICU room with me.«

So they split up, and Lisbon arrived at the police headquarter about twenty minutes later. Cho was waiting there for her, and said: »I´ve talked to Detective Miller. He is very cooperative, but still thinks that this was only an accident. He did not give me the chance to take an own look in the police report at first, but then there arrived an urgent e-mail. It was the special permit we were waiting for. He immediately let me have a look at the file pages. But there´s still nothing that indicates that it was more than an accident. They took photos of the site, and also analyzed the blood traces on the rocks.«

Suddenly a second voice added: »They also had a tracker dog at the site because we wanted to know where she came from, or if other tracks lead away from there.«

They both looked at the man; Cho seemed to know him already, but he was new to Lisbon. He was a tall, well-built man who looked like as if he liked it to do some sports activities when he was off duty. His hair was black and his eyes an amazing sea-green. One short moment Teresa thought still and without words just "_wow_" then she smiled at him.

He stretched out his hand: »My name is Miller, John Miller. Detective… I am also working on that case with my colleagues. It's a nice surprise to get such a charming visitor from the mainland. I think your Agent Cho has already told you, that we´ll work together?«

Lisbon told him first who she was, then she continued: »Yes, we will work together. Why do you think poor Mrs. de Palmer has had an accident, and not that someone attacked her? We have found medical traces that justify disbelief in an accident-theory.«

Miller sighed: »Nothing indicates that there was another person involved. We found no traces on her clothes, they were all undamaged – no one tried to tear her away by force, and she had no signs of an attempt of self defense on her.«

Lisbon asked: »Have you visited the accident side yet?«

Miller shook his head: »No, I haven't, but the colleagues have shown me very good pictures, out of every ankle. There has been a rather heavy rainfall the night after we found her, and the next morning, when the investigation unit returned, there were no traces of the blood left. They closed the accident site and the hotel owners promised to install a light there soon, so that nothing like that happens ever again.«

Teresa wondered herself: »You are the investigating Detective, and weren´t even there, at the… what's the name of the hotel?«

Cho said: »_Sunset Horizon Resort_. The next village is Kahaluu-Keauhou.«

Miller explained: »No, I had no time to go there, because there was a case of car theft here in Hilo where a young man was gunned down right at the same time. But I got the report on the table read it of course, and sent my colleague, Chief Barren, there to have a look around. She confirmed everything that we already knew. I was at the husband´s yesterday, but he only could tell me what he told before: He was worried because she was late, and he searched her on her daily route. That was when he found her. But I think you´d like to speak to Mister de Palmer himself, do you? If you want, we can visit him. He said, that it is ok to ask him again whenever we need.«

Teresa thought about the proposal for a moment, then she decided: »Cho, would you please pick up Van Pelt at the hospital and drive to the hotel? Organize someone from the local PD that will come with you. Take a look at the accident site and ask the manager of the hotel. Maybe an employee or a guest has seen or heard something.« She turned to Miller: »How long is the drive from Hilo?«

»About two hours and twenty minutes, thirty if it rains.« Miller answered.

Lisbon said: »Good. Listen, Cho. You have enough time to go there and return today. Meanwhile Rigsby and I concentrate on the husband. You already know the content of the police report; Van Pelt knows the med rep. Compare everything you see and hear with the things you´ve read. We meet at our hotel lobby at five, for the day´s closure.«

Miller supposed: »Take Chief Barren with you, Agent Cho, she knows the scene and the people there. She is entrusted to the whole case. And you can use one of our cars.«

They parted; and to her surprise Miller took Lisbon on a walk by foot: »It´s only eight blocks to the hotel where Evan de Palmer lives. It´s a nice day, and probably won´t rain until the late afternoon.« he smiled. »Would you mind having lunch with me at a nice place on the beach, after we´ve talked to Mister de Palmer? You could tell me some stories from the great big rest of the US. I´ve not been there for years. Once I was skiing in Aspen, this was the first time I saw snow. Funny, isn´t it?«

Lisbon answered: »Of course I´d like to have lunch with you at a nice place, but after we´ve visited Mister de Palmer I want to look at the police report to update me.«

Detective Miller sighed: »Ah, well, I forgot. Of course you want to look at it. I´ll take it with us, then you can look at it while we sit at the beach. Would you please wait for me here?« He turned round and run back to the Hilo Police Department.

When he returned, they went on and were at the_ Bay Lodge _a couple of minutes later. It was more an apartment rental area than a hotel house, but not as exclusive as it might have fit a well known cosmetic surgeon. Rigsby had already met with Mister de Palmer and there was not much more to add to his report. He repeated the words that were in the protocol without any trace of doubt, and did not lose his way in any kind of lie.

»We would need Jane here.« said Rigsby. »So far as I see he really tells us the truth, or he is such a good liar that he can conceal his real doings very well.«

Lisbon nodded: »I think that we can trust our common sense. It is true, yes; he _was_ alone in the room when he was waiting for her, and that is not much of an alibi. But would anyone who had something to conceal really tell us such a non-provable story? _Of course_ he could have left earlier and he could have followed his wife to attack her. He had got the time and no one was with him to prove that he really was in the room until he started the search. It was then when some other guests and hotel employees heard him cry after Caren.«

Miller said: »And it is also no proof that he was in the room watching TV, because he could have let the TV on and leave. He´s got so much of no alibi that it is very unlikely that he really did it. I mean, did _something_. And I see what your point might be in this. Carens body showed no sign of self defense, either it was an accident as we are convinced, or she knew her attacker and did not expect him to harm her. The husband-theory.«

Rigsby confirmed: »Yeah, I thought of this. If it was him, she would not be prepared that he´d attack her. Maybe therefore she is unscathed besides her severe head hurts.«

Lisbon was his opinion: »This is the point. Maybe he is so clever that he tries to trick us with this non-alibi-story.« She went back into the hotel room and told Mister de Palmer: »I know that this sounds harsh, but do not leave town until the investigations are complete.«

»You suspect me? Me? What have I done wrong?« Evan de Palmer was desperate. »I loved… I love my wife! I never could do her any harm. I would die for her, if needed.«

Lisbon took a deep breath, then she said: »We only investigate into all directions. You are not a main suspect until you give us reason – say, if you try to leave the city. We have nothing definite until now. We work on this case for the first day. Maybe we will know more after we´ve talked to the other witnesses.«

Evan de Palmer sighed: »I have no intention to leave this town. Not without my wife. If you need me you´ll find me either here or at the hospital.« He rose from his seat. »Would you please leave me now, I am really exhausted. You can be sure that I´ll be here.«

Lisbon and Miller said at the same time: »Yes of course. Thank you for your time.« Both smiled because they had used the same words, Rigsby also was amused. They left the hotel. It was midday and Miller repeated his invitation: »What about lunch at this nice beach tavern now? You are also welcome, Agent Rigsby.«

»Aah…« Wayne began. »I… I´d like to, eh…« he looked in the beach-direction with a longing gaze. Everybody had to admit that it was a wonderful sight. Sea, palms, sand…

Lisbon smiled at him: »I´ll give you free time as soon as we have read the police report together.« It was really unusual that she ever offered a few hours of relaxing time, but maybe the very seducing surroundings had something to do with it.

»Yup, boss.« Rigsby smiled widely.

They hurried up with the police report and after they both were through with it and had their words with Detective Miller, the accident theory seemed to be more likely again, although the local police has agreed that there were no signs of self defense.

Lisbon turned to her younger teammate: »Ok, Rigsby, that´s it for the moment. We meet at five pm at our hotel lounge to summarize the data that we got today. Until then it´s your free time. But don´t tell Cho or Van Pelt, they have to work all day.«

Detective Miller smiled: »Oh, they´ll have it nice too. They´re crossing the whole island with my colleague Nancy Barren. You can´t get a better island tour than with her as guide. She´s been at the youth nature watch of Hawaii before she entered the police school. In her free time she´s still working with this group. I´m sure she´ll show them the most beautiful spots you can see here.«

Teresa sighed: »Well, now _I_ am jealous. I want to look at the island too.«

Miller proposed: »I also know some really nice spots to show you, if you´d like. And while I present you the beauties of the island, you can tell me something from the mainland. You still owe me stories.« He smiled. »Wouldn´t that be fun?«

»Why not?« said Lisbon, and looked a last time after Rigsby, who has been still waiting for this last goodbye. »Off you go, Rigs, hush.« she waved at him. He jumped to his feet and went away at a fast pace. Teresa and Detective Miller took it slower. They ordered a non-alcoholic cocktail first, after that the man took her down to the harbor of Hilo.

As soon as they were there, he showed her a police-speedboat. »We use this, all right? And no panic, I am a good captain.« For safety he gave her a life vest, and then they drove out to the sea. Lisbon really enjoyed it to be with him, he knew interesting facts about the island, told her an old legend of Hawaii, and listened eagerly to the stories she knew from California, although they seemed to her lame and uninteresting if one compared them with the beauty of the island of Hawaii.

They were driving back to the harbor, when suddenly Lisbon's phone rang out: »Jane.« she said, to answer the call. »Have you already booked your flight here?«

Detective John Miller asked: »Who´s Jane? Another colleague of you? Is she also as pretty and as likable as you are? She´s to be good to be a rival for you.«

Teresa giggled and said: »Jane… is a man. _Patrick_. Patrick Jane. And he can be a real pain in the neck, if you want the truth.« She was still smiling. »He´s our consultant.«

Miller also laughed: »Oh, I am sorry. I only overheard his surname then. You like him?«

»We´ve gone thru a lot of things together.« Lisbon answered. »He…« she put the phone away a little and covered the microphone: »He´s... um… I´ve no words to describe it.«

»Lisbon? Still there? Who´s your friend?« Jane wanted to know by phone.

She answered: »Detective John Miller, our local partner who works on this case.«

Patrick was silent for a few moments. »Where are you, by the way? I can hear some engine, but this is not a car.«

»You are right, this is not a car. I am on a boat.«

»Sightseeing.« explained Detective Miller with a loud voice. »You don´t have to be jealous, I take good care of her.« he smiled. »The lady is safe with me.«

Teresa added: »Did you hear him? So what now, will you arrive tomorrow?«

»I will, as I told you.« he hang up abruptly.

Lisbon was surprised about that, but the strange feeling did not last for long. They were in the harbor now and Miller fixed the boat at the pier. »That was nice, thank you.« she said, when she was on firm ground again. »Do you want to join us while we summarize the day´s investigations, so that you get to know the newest info?«

Miller nodded: »Yes, I will. But I need my laptop first, to add the news to the report directly. Meet you at your hotel at five?«

»Ok. See you.« she smiled at him.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The plan about the wedding-planners

Grace Van Pelt and Kimball Cho were both so impressed by the wonderful nature and the other sightseeing spots they had seen on their trip to the west coast, that they had the urgent wish to tell it Lisbon and Rigsby. Even Kimball, who usually did not like chit-chatting, had a lot to add and explain in addition to Grace´s main story. Teresa and Wayne listened to them with interest; Detective Miller was not here yet and they wanted to wait for him. As Miller was still not here when Grace and Cho were ready, Lisbon also told them what she had seen and heard from her "island-guide" and Rigsby admitted after a while that he had done nothing so exciting, he just searched for a super spot on the beach and spent the afternoon there with sun-bathing and swimming.

Now was cloudy outside, and when Detective Miller arrived, his suit was wet at the shoulders and in his hair were drops of water. A hotel boy brought a towel for him. »Its only a short thunderstorm.« he said. »All will be gone within the next half an hour. It usually rains some afternoons this time of the year. It will dry up soon. We are used to that in Hilo.« he smiled. »If you are prepared, and in casual clothing, it is very nice to go jogging in the rain. You should try this once as long as you are here – and when you come home, you change into something dry. The next time you look out of the window, the sun will be shining again.« he chuckled. »Hawaii is wonderful – in the winter you can linger on the beach as well as go up to the mountain tops and have a snow-ball match.«

Lisbon called for duty: »I admit; it is seducing to try this out – the air scents wonderful during that island rain. But we´ve got a job to do first. So let´s get the day´s news together. Maybe we can tell Mrs. Wilder already today what we´ll do now if something suspicious leads us to further investigations; or confirm with one-hundred-percent certainty that it was an accident. Van Pelt and I will start with the med rep, then we discuss the police´s report, after that the statement of Mister de Palmer. At the end we turn to the things that you found out at the hotel, and then we try to set it all together to a whole, fine file.«

Grace also took her laptop; she was the one that would collect all interesting facts for the CBI-team in their own words and for their own file records.

There were still some gaps in the timeline of Caren´s last hours before the accident. For example no one did really know when she really left the hotel room, and a big remaining question was, whether Mister de Palmer has been in his room all the time until he went for the search of his wife. But after that there was no important piece missing in the timeline. Several witnesses had heard his cries for Caren when he was still searching her; and his desperate yell for help when he found her. They had seen the police and the paramedics come, and as good as all guests had noticed the helicopter that picked her up to bring her to Hilo. Two hotel employees had been at the accident site; one of them had phoned for help. They all confirmed that Mister de Palmer had been deeply shocked and needed medical treatment too, before he was able to call a cab that brought him to Hilo. All guests and employees that had met Caren and Evan de Palmer were convinced that they were a perfect, loving couple, and that the possibility that he would hurt her did not even exist.

All the paramedics and the emergency doctor that were there were convinced that no one could fake the physical shock state that Evan de Palmer was in, and they all would say that he was not guilty. On the other hand, Caren´s severe head hurts could not be explained at once, but the local doctors assumed that she stumbled once and hit her head – the first blow at the left side – and went on jogging because she thought it was not so harmful, but that was a big fault of overestimation of her abilities. The concussion brought her down and therefore she could not catch her fall. Everyone said it was an _accident_.

Lisbon sighed: »I´ll phone Mrs. Wilder and tell her.«

Cho mentioned: »Wait one moment, boss. I must admit there was something strange in our investigation at the hotel site. Well, it is difficult to say… everybody was friendly and helpful there… but I had the impression that they had something to conceal.«

Van Pelt nodded: »He is right. You nearly wouldn't have recognized it, but the hotel manager and his high staff members were a little bit _too_ friendly and helpful. They tried to assist us in every way they could. If we´d have allowed it, they would have carried us around in the hotel area with sedan-chairs, if you want a sort of description of their attitude. They answered all questions fast and as detailed as one would please, but still…«

Lisbon asked: »You think that they were holding something back, and tried to please you with complete cooperation in every other matter.« She turned to Detective Miller: »Did your colleagues also notice such a strange behavior?«

John shook his head: »No, never.« he chuckled. »And I must say that it is a little bit ruff to think that way.« When he noticed that the others looked at him a little bit displeased, he added: »Of course I do not want to criticize your experience in trading with suspects. But you might not be used to the easy friendliness of the Hawaiian people. They´ve got nothing to hide, so they can be as open-minded as they wish to be.« He still smiled. »My people and also my assistant Chief Brannan told me the same as you. They said that everyone was up to help them as best as possible.« Miller paused: »Ah, but there is some difference.« he was enlightened. »When my colleagues were there for the reports, no one asked about the possibility of an attack. Maybe they got just a little uneasy when you mentioned that part of your investigation. It is not very good for a hotel if there is the rumor that an _intruder_ or – what may be worse – an _employee_ attacked a hotel guest.«

»Could be.« said Rigsby. »As soon as there is the rumor, the reputation of the hotel is in danger. Think of a hotel where a trespasser can get so far that he attacks a guest! Of course they want avoid that, and they were afraid that the word would spread.«

Lisbon was still cautious: »But if there is something, only the faintest trace of doubt, we cannot say that the case is closed. And in this, I am afraid, there are some things we can´t be really sure about – even if we only look at the time gap where Caren was running alone, from the plateau at the "Sundown Rock" to the place she was found. But what can we do?«

Rigsby proposed: »We could try an undercover.« then he smiled and waved his hand. »Oh, forget it, that was just a… you know, the first idea I had. Like some Detective thing that I have seen on TV recently… _ha-ha_, just do as if I had never said this.«

Van Pelt scratched her nose, then she said: »But the idea´s not a bad one, really. At least one could look around in the whole area without being disturbed. If they don´t know that you are police, they do not have a reason to be suspicious. Boss?«

»Might be an option. Let me think about it for a moment.« Lisbon stood up and went for a little walk at the open terrace, where she saw that the thunderstorm had moved out to the sea already and it was not raining anymore. Yes, Van Pelt had a point there. She returned to the table and nodded. »Let´s do it. Even if it does lead into nothing, we´ve tried, haven´t we? I don´t want to close the case as long it gives me an uneasy feeling.«

She looked at them in a row. »Van Pelt and Cho, they know you already, so you can´t return there undercover; but I need you outside anyway. You have to be the contact persons to Mrs. Wilder, Mr. de Palmer, the local police and our HQ. That's a mass of work, I know, but I know that I can depend on you. Rigsby, you and me will be the undercover team, we´ll check in the hotel as guests – let´s do a make-believe we are the wedding planners for my sister that is marrying your brother. This is a good reason why we´ll have our look-a-rounds in the complete hotel area. Is this ok with all of you?«

Van Pelt and Cho nodded, Rigsby was happy: »So this is like holiday and except of the look-a-rounds we can feel like real tourists? Beach, sea, cocktails, real good food? Yuppie!«

Detective Miller also laughed: »That's not usual police work, but I think I like it. Seems to be interesting and maybe you´ll really find something out. And if there is nothing more to it, and it was a terrible accident, you at least can be sure that you did everything. Mrs. Wilder won´t have no reason to blame anyone of us.«

Lisbon smiled: »Good. We´ll start tomorrow morning, and play as if we´ve arrived with one of the first planes on Hilo airport, and drove to the hotel resort then. So we´ve got to get up early. I´ve seen in the arrival hall yesterday evening that the morning plane from Honolulu is here at seven a.m. and the first planes from the main land arrive at eight thirty.« She looked at the exit of the hotel. »It´s not too late now. I´ll go and tell Mrs. Wilder the latest news.« then she smiled. »I can do this alone. A good night to all of you. Your to-do-list for today is done with. You can spend a nice evening on your own wishes, I won´t need you anymore today. But be ready at seven a.m. please, so that we can start our undercover mission.«

»Thank you boss.« Rigsby, Van Pelt and Cho answered in unison.

Van Pelt said to her teammates: »What would you say to a quiet place next to the sea while it is still sunny?« They were immediately ok with that.

Wayne asked his friends while they stood up: »And maybe we find a nice beach bar at nightfall, where we can get some food and drinks?«

Miller advised him: »Sorry to interfere, but I know a nice one, really cute, only fifteen minutes by foot from this place. It is called the _Wailualua Lodge_. Really good place and good drinks, also tasty little menus; all together with the best sea view. Send the barkeeper greetings from me – he´ll serve you a glass of palm wine on my expense.«

»Sounds good.« Cho said. »Thank you.«

»Well, have a nice evening then.« Lisbon went out of the hotel lobby and Detective Miller followed her close by. »May I ask you out for tonight evening?« he said.

Teresa smiled at him: »It would be a pleasure, John. But, as I decided a minute ago, I´ve got to talk to Mrs. Wilder first. I can´t let this undone, and I am afraid that we´ll have no time tomorrow. I assume she´s dying for news, and I want to tell her myself. I won´t be able to see her for the next days, when Rigsby and I are on the west coast.«

Miller thought about it for a few seconds, then he proposed: »What if I´d pick up you at half past seven at the hotel? I know a very good restaurant that overlooks the whole city.«

»Yes, ok, see you at the hotel.« Lisbon confirmed, and went on.

:-:

She was ready with her meeting at the hospital and Mrs. Wilder seemed to be confident for the moment, when her phone rang out. It was Jane again and he asked her about the day. While Teresa went out of the hospital and took place in a cab, she told him what they were up to do. Of course he had something to smile about in this plan; but in general he seemed to agree with the idea; no, in fact he really began to like it.

»Which story you want to "make-believe" the folks in the hotel?«

»Rigs and I are planning to check in to the hotel as wedding planners for my sister who´s gonna marry his brother. So we can check out every luxury place that a "just married" couple might like without being suspicious.«

»I´ll go and talk to the husband first.« he decided after they had spoken long enough about the undercover mission. »Therefore I think I will contact Cho or Van Pelt, to tell them when I´ll arrive at Hilo, so that they can pick me up. Maybe I come to the accident site when I have talked to them all, or maybe not. It was the _Sunset Horizon Resort_, am I right?«

»Yes, and that´s fine with me, Jane.« Lisbon said. »They´ll have enough to do, when Rigs and I are some kind of out of order.«

»Ha-ha!« Jane laughed. »Oh, I am sure you´ll like it. It´s all about relax and enjoy, but still work, as you like it. You hate it to give free days. I expect the poor _kids_ had no free minute yet?« He giggled. »They must be so tired that they can hardly stand upright.«

»Ey, don´t say that! I´ve given them the whole evening today.«

»Honestly?«

»Yup. Bye-bye now. I am at the hotel and got something to do.«

He was curious: »What to do? Still work in the evening? You can never stop, can you?«

»Detective Miller´s asked me out for dinner.« she answered. »None of your business.«

»Why did you tell me then?« he replied.

She was confused: » But you asked…«

»I never did.« one could hear his smile right through the phone. »I only wanted to know if you´re still working today. I _know_, that it is not my concern whom you date.«

»Jane!«

»Bye then. And don´t you think that I am _jealous_ of him.«

Lisbon stressed every word: »I do not want you to be jealous on anyone!«

»Ah, just keep on imagining that.« he hung up before she could say another word, but nevertheless he had made this point somehow… _NO! What point? Huh? Am I crazy?_

:-:

At half past eight this evening, one hour after she´d met Detective Miller again, Teresa Lisbon was in one of the most beautiful little restaurants she´d ever been. The conversation with Jane was long forgotten – she´d put that back as soon as John Miller had been there with his private car, a small cabriolet, to pick her up. She wore an unusual, dark green cocktail dress, and Miller was here in a black suit. The restaurant crew did a traditional Hawaiian barbecue this night – a Luau, with music and dance. The food had been very good, and the drinks were delicious; right now they were at the last course, the dessert.

»Do you like it here, Teresa?« Miller asked. After a while they had agreed to be on the "du" form. Here on the island there seemed to be everything different, and Lisbon had to admit that she was not unhappy that they were somewhat closer now.

»Yes, John.« she replied: »It´s a cute place.«

»The evening is not over yet. Would you like to go to another exciting spot with me, after dinner? We have almost full moon and the island is so beautiful under the moonlight. I could get us two police quads at the equipment house, so that we can use the faster side road, up the mountain to a little plateau. I´ll bring you back before midnight, I swear. I know that tomorrow will be an exhausting day.« he smiled. »I hope you are not too tired today, and I do not force you to a trip you won´t like… so if…«

»Of course I´d like to go on this quad-ride with you.« she said. »But look at me, I can't ride a quad in a cocktail dress. Sorry.«

»You could change while I prepare the quads. I´ll drop you at the hotel and pick you up again when I´m ready with the quads.« Miller smiled at her. »What do you say, Miss California? Adventure, adventure! I love this island and I know you´d love it too, if you know it´s secrets. Don´t let your work overpower you. Take one night for your own ere you start to work again. I promise it is very beautiful. I mean, not as beautiful as you but… still.«

Lisbon smiled: »You can be really convincing, you know that?« She took a bit of her tropical fruit dessert, then she added: »But you don´t have to pick me up again. Just drop me at the hotel, and I´ll get a taxi to the police station, when I am ready with changing my clothes. Should I bring a jacket, or is it ok with a long-armed shirt?«

»That´s a good idea, Teresa. If you really come to the police station with a cab, that would save us some minutes. I can leave my car at the parking lot there and after our trip I´ll get you back into your room. And I think that some kind of sweat-shirt and long legged trousers would do. If you´re feeling cold, I´ll be there.« he said, and also started to eat his fruit and ice. »But we don´t have to hurry. We´ve enough time for it all.«

:-:

Rigsby, Cho and Van Pelt were out together. They had spent a good time on the beach until the sun finally was behind the island´s mountains, then they dressed up to have their lunch at the beach bar that Miller had proposed, the _Wailualua Lodge_. It was really a nice Hawaiian Style Beach Bar, where one could sit down in cozy chairs and have as well small dishes like pizza, burgers, or nachos, as well as very fine cocktails. They had the palm wine and one cocktail already, and the second one was coming that moment.

»Thank you.« Grace said to the waitress, then she turned to the men: »Maybe one time I´ll come back here to have a real holiday. I still can´t believe that the boss gave us the late afternoon and the evening free.«

»I am also surprised.« Rigsby had to admit. »But assume I know why, she´s a little bit fond of Detective Miller, I think, and enjoys her time with him. They went for dinner.«

Cho said: »Island-feelings.« he did not smile nor show any emotion on his face, but the others knew his kind of humor and laughed.

»Cheers on the island-feelings!« Wayne cried with a loud voice and rose his glass.

The other two did the same and took a sip, still smiling.

»I like island-feelings.« Grace had to admit. »And maybe the cocktails did their little bit to it… a few more good songs and I really go to the dance floor.«

»I´d like to see that.« Kimball encouraged her. »If you really start to dance, and this was not only a story, I´ll join you.«

Wayne nodded: »Me too. The music is good.« Suddenly his cell-phone rang out and at first he seemed to be really bewildered. He had not counted on being disturbed by his phone right now, but took the call: »Yes?« Then he seemed to be a little bit confused: »I come of course. See you soon, ok? I am only fifteen minutes away, at this beach bar you told us.«

Cho asked, suddenly alert: »Who was that? The boss, calling for duty?«

»Oh no, I fear, I can´t concentrate on work now.« Grace admitted. »I´m afraid that the cocktails and the palm wine were good, but strong.«

»No it´s not been the boss. It´s been Miller, he needs to meet me for a moment.« he stood up. »I´ll be back in a few minutes, he´s just next to the hotel, he says.« He turned round to go. »Please save my cocktail, it is really good. I´ll drink it up when I´m back.« With these words he hurried to the exit of the bar.

Cho shook his head. »Thought Miller was for a dinner with Lisbon?«

»Hm.« Grace was humming. »Rigs will tell us, if it is any of our concern.« but then she smiled: »Maybe he wants a tip how to seduce the boss.«

»Rigsby might not be the best address for that kind of question.« Kimball replied. »But I think Miller will notice sooner or later.«

Van Pelt laughed, and took another sip of her drink. »So, and now I think that I really go to the dance floor. I like this song. I used to listen to it for hours when I was a teenager; can´t remember why I like it so much, but it is great.«

»It´s not my style of music.« Cho admitted. »But I told you that I would join if you´d dance. So let´s dance, I´d say.«

They decided to wait at the bar as Wayne had bade them, but after one hour had passed it seemed very unlikely that he would return. But that was strange. He had told them that they should save his cocktail, but in the meantime all the ice was melted. Or had he said that they should drink it, before the ice melts? They did not remember what he really said to them, but it did not justify the long time he was away. Even if he had to run the whole way to the hotel, he must be back by now.

»Waitress?« Grace called, and soon the young woman was next to them. Van Pelt continued: »Would you please take the cocktail of our friend back, we´ll pay it, of course, and offer him a new one as soon as he returns. We´ll order another round for us all then.«

»Yes, Ma´am. Of course.« she went away with the glasses.

But then the phone of Grace started to ring. »Rigsby?« she asked, suddenly afraid, because she heard the tone in his voice. »Where are you? What …« her face went blank. »Oh dear! Wayne, tell me where you are, please, what can you see? Is anybody else there? Call the paramedics! We´ll come as soon as possible. Call the ambulance and then me again. Inform nine-one-one, and then call me, ok?« she hang up.

Cho was alarmed: »What happened?«

»He´s been attacked.«


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Undercover replacement

Grace explained: »He was between the hotel and here. Someone hit him down with a baseball-bat or something, took all the money. One blow must have hit him at the head, so he fell unconscious. Can you call the boss and Miller? I´ve to keep the line open for Wayne.« She took her money out of her pocket, so that she could pay the drinks, while Cho dialed.

Lisbon was concerned, but when Kimball told her that Wayne had been able to phone by himself she calmed down a little. »We will come as soon as possible. Where is he?«

Besides her the voice of Detective Miller was audible: »What´s up, Teresa?«

To Cho´s astonishment they seemed to be together still. Lisbon turned on the speaker. »Listen, John. Someone knocked Rigsby down.« she said to the man besides her. »Please continue.« she bid her agent then, and fell silent.

Cho asked: »Detective Miller, did you meet before he was attacked? Was he heading back to us, or did that happen on the way to you?«

Miller said, his intonation was shocked: »Excuse me, _what_? Repeat that, please.«

Cho explained: »Rigsby got a call, and said, that _you_ called him and wanted to tell him something, and that you are not far away. Van Pelt and I assumed that you were at the hotel. Have you met there after you brought our boss back?«

The Detective was still paralyzed, and his words came slow: »Good gracious heavens, I _never_ called him. I spent the whole evening with Teresa, with an excuse of about twenty minutes when I was at the Hilo PD to get the keys for the quads that we are now travelling with. We met again at nine forty … I know it so exactly because we wanted to be up on the hill at ten past ten – to watch the moon-rise. And we are still at the hill, looking at the moon. But that´s minor now, we´re coming. Where are you?«

That minute Grace said loud: »It´s Wayne again, he says that the paramedics are on their way, he´s seen the name of the next bigger street. It is the Wahalalee-Drive.«

Cho said: »You hear that? We meet there.«

»Got that. We´ll bring the forensics suitcase with us from the police station. At least one of you has to wait for us there, even if they bring Rigsby to the hospital in the meantime. Secure the crime scene.« Lisbon answered, and then she hung up.

:-:

It was scary. The attack on Rigsby had happened not far from them. Who would believe that their friend was beaten up only a few street corners away, while they were happily in a bar, having cocktails and a dance? Cho loaded the city plan of Hilo on his phone and searched for the street. It was less than ten minutes by foot if one walks slowly, but they both were running and were much faster. The blue ambulance lights showed them the way on the last seconds of their run. The paramedics could not be there for a long time, but they had Rigsby on their mobile bed already. He was dirty and his shirt was torn on one shoulder, but he was alive and talking to the emergency doctor, who set him an infusion needle in the right arm.

Cho and Van Pelt hurried at his side. »It is good to see you.« Wayne said, smiling.

Grace smiled back: »You really shocked us, you know that? Since when do you go gown so easy?« she was not too serious with that. »A big man like you?«

»I am sorry, but I could not help it. That lunatic attacked me without warning.«

Kimball said: »That´s the thing about robbers, Rigs. They _never_ will tell you when they strike. Can you remember, did the attacker come after you or was he waiting somewhere?«

Wayne pointed back to the small side street. »Waited there in the shadows.«

Cho said: »Ok. Grace will stay with you, I´ll look at the evidence. See ya later.« He turned around and tried to see some traces of evidence. The attack took place in a small side street between two apartment buildings. It was a dead end street where only the fire stairs led down and garbage containers were placed. No street lamp was in this small edge, and no windows looked in this direction. It was unlikely that someone had seen the attack; but now, as the ambulance was there and a police car arrived, the people started to get curious. Two young policemen placed the "do-not-cross" line around the crime scene.

Grace looked at Wayne. He had a bump on his forehead and his right shinbone was starting to get blue. The paramedics said that they had to x-ray him at the hospital to see if it was broken. He had a couple of other hurting body parts; he could not count them exactly now.

»You should have called nine-one-one at once, not me.« she said.

»I did not think about that, I really wanted to talk to you first.« Wayne answered. »He… and I am _sure_ that it was a man, jumped out of the side street holding a knife in his one hand, and a kind of wood-stick that looked like a piece of beach-driftwood in the other. He was masked and clothed in black. I was able to kick the knife away, but it seemed to me, as if he only was up to distracting me with that weapon, because he gave it up much too easy. Instead of that he started to hit me with the piece of wood like a berserk, so that I only could think of defense. I think a blow hit me at the head, because the next I know was that I woke up in the dirt next to the trash containers… oh, I must smell like a dead rat.«

One of the paramedics had overheard the talk and was relieved: »If you can remember it, your concussion can´t be that bad. Maybe your brain started to recover itself while you were unconscious. But we´ll bring you to the hospital now. You can talk to your colleagues as soon as the doctors could have a closer look at you. Agreed, Agent Rigsby?«

Grace said to him: »I´ll come soon. I help Cho at the crime scene first, ere another thunderstorm destroys evidence. You´ll be all right, promise?«

»Of course I´ll be. Sorry for the inconvenience.« Rigsby answered, then the paramedics put the bed in the car, closed the rear door, and drove on.

Cho shook his head and said, when Van Pelt arrived at his side: »No evidence. There are no footsteps – the ground is clean, there is no dust or dirt that could have conserved anything. Only the area right around the containers is really… unhygienic, let's say it like that. But there are too many substances, stains, and splotches, whatever. I think Rigsby fell down here, this fishy stench smells exactly like he did, but that´s all. There are no security cameras visible… we have to ask the owners of the apartments.«

Van Pelt nodded: »Let´s get started, as long as their memory is still fresh.«

They had already watchers. Most of them lived in the houses nearby, but also a pair of tourists was there. No one had heard something strange. It was usual that persons passed by. The street was close to the beach and many night clubs were in the area. More than often loud tourists or strangers with rented cars or motorbikes were on search for a cheap parking place here. Now and then a drunken person was singing out loud or throwing up in the side-street. The police was informed about that, and there had been a bunch of arrests or sending-offs, but this night had been rather quiet and the most people had spent a nice evening until they had noticed the flashlights of the emergency team.

Lisbon and Miller arrived fifteen minutes later. They were in a small cabriolet and stopped next to the police car. They had the forensics suitcase and a good camera with them, but they were useless, there was almost nothing that they could do.

»Summarize it for us.« the Senior Agent said, and a short time later she and Detective Miller were informed. Teresa decided to have a short look around too, but she was totally convinced that her two team colleagues had already done a good job.

The Detective supposed: »If you like, my officers and I will work here. You can go and look after Rigsby. We´ll get some flood light lamps and the other forensics equipment over here, and search for any evidence. _If_ there is… it looks bad.«

Teresa nodded: »If you would do that, it would be really nice.« She turned around, and walked away a few steps, then she stopped again and called her team together. »John, would you also come here for a moment, please? You should to hear that too.«

The four of them grouped in a corner so that no one could overhear them, then Lisbon said: »This could be an accidental attack, but also a targeted assault on our investigation in the Caren de Palmer case. It is hard enough, if Rigsby had been a mere victim of a robbery, but if it was an attempt to stop us, there must be really something that someone wants to hide. Therefore, although Rigsby has been knocked down, we should carry on with our plan. I will go to the hotel tomorrow. Maybe there will be some suspicious ongoing, especially after this night. Probably someone wants to destroy evidence material, as long as this person thinks that we are hold back.«

Grace nodded, but she was alarmed: »But it could be dangerous if you are there all alone. Maybe I could dye my hair or something, and come with you…«

Detective Miller agreed: »Yes! If there is really a point on that theory - although I do not believe it – you must not go there alone, Teresa. But it would be a fault to send someone there who has been seen by the employees or guests. Even if you try to go in masquerade, Grace.« He sighed and bowed a little bit closer: »I have an idea, maybe it´s worth to think about it. _I _will go with you to the hotel, and we check in undercover, together.«

»You?« Lisbon asked in wonder: »And what about the investigation here?«

Miller told her: »My colleague Chief Barren also knows all the little do-no-goods in our surroundings, she can take over for me, and I am sure that the Agents Van Pelt and Cho would help her with all their skills. And Rigsby of course, as soon he´s out of hospital.«

»Okay.« Teresa was close to be convinced. »So you will come with me.«

Detective Miller continued: »Yes, but there is one problem. If – _if –_ there is a true point in that someone tries to interrupt the investigation, it is too dangerous if we check in alone. We must not be separated for any cause; we are too easy to take down if we spend time in single rooms. Therefore I think we should check in as two people who are closer, so that we can keep an eye on each other. I´ll keep your back safe, and you mine, Teresa.«

Lisbon narrowed her eyes: »Like what? As a couple? Friends? Partners? Lovers?«

»Whatever you like, Teresa. Just think about it and tell me tomorrow, when I pick you up. We can figure out the plan while we´re driving. Go and visit Rigsby now and don´t be too concerned. I´m sure everything will be fine. If there is something, we´ll find out.«

:-:

The three CBI Agents did not stay any longer, but went to the next bigger street where a cab came within minutes. It was getting late now and they wanted to be at the hospital fast. While they were driving, they discussed the new part in the plan, but there was no point or argument that would speak against it. In fact, it seemed to be a good idea to carry on with the investigation – they must show that no attempt could irritate them; if it _was_ an attempt to stop them and not just bad coincidence.

»And Rigsby will help us here.« Cho said. »We need some telephone contact; and if he has not the ability to run away, he´s damned to do this part this time.«

Van Pelt smiled: »Let´s hope that he can leave the hospital soon.«

Lisbon sighed: »We´ve to call Jane and tell him what happened, as soon as we´re with Rigsby.«

Wayne was in a usual three-bed-room in the hospital, but he was the only patient there. The doctors were ready with their check-up. His shinbone was not broken but seriously bruised, his concussion was almost gone, but they wanted to keep him over night to be sure. He had lots of smaller bruises and hematomas, where the attacker had hit him, but they would heal with time. For the night he was on pain killers, but not really strong ones.

When the others were with him, he told them: »It was luck that he only took my money, and that I had my gun and the badge at the hotel. I don´t want to imagine a loaded weapon in the hands of a lunatic attacker.« Then he sighed deeply and whispered: »I´m sorry boss, that I messed up the plan, because I was careless.«

Lisbon answered: »Don´t worry about that, we´ve found an alternative. I´ll call Jane in a minute, to tell him the news, and you can listen to it then. But right now tell me, why did you leave the others? Cho said that Detective Miller called you? Is this true?«

Rigsby nodded: »Yes… or someone that pretended to be him did. The caller said that he needed to tell me something important, and that I should come to the hotel.«

»Hm. John insisted on that he did not call you - and he was with me nearly all the time. Would you show me your phone please? Maybe we have a number.«

»It´s in my pocket, in the wardrobe, but I don´t think that there was a number.«

Lisbon took the phone and looked at the last numbers, but to her displease there was only an unknown call listed at the time that Rigsby remembered. »Must have been a disposable cell-phone or a suppressed number. Van Pelt, try to find out something about that call as soon as you are back in the hotel.«

»Yes.« Grace answered and stretched her hand out for the phone of her friend. »You´ll get it back tomorrow, Wayne. I leave you mine here for the night.«

»Ok, whatever you like.« Rigsby answered. »Take it, but I am really uncertain now. The longer I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that the caller was a stranger.«

Lisbon took her own phone. It was a while until Jane answered the call. His voice sounded as if he had been sleeping and was so much besides himself that he could hardly hold his telephone to his ear: »Ugh…Wadsit?« he muttered.

»Jane, listen. Rigsby´s been attacked, he´s in hospital and not able to accompany me to the _Sunset Horizon Resort_.«

Within a moment the consultant was awake: »Is he ok?«

»He will be. He´s got a lot of bruises and a slight concussion, and they keep him overnight, but so far he´s feeling good. But he can´t walk, he won´t be helpful at a place we need to have a look-a-round. Detective Miller has agreed to be my companion during the investigation time. We changed the plot a little bit, we will check in there as a couple so that we can stay together without attracting any suspicions.«

»Why?« Patrick asked. »That couple-thing now… and not the other plan?«

Teresa explained: »Well, we are not one-hundred-percent sure that the attack on Rigsby was pure chance. He told us that he got a phone call from a man who pretended to be Detective Miller; who said that he wants to meet him. Therefore he left the others and was alone when he was attacked. But John, I mean, the real Detective Miller, was with me almost all evening. When Cho called and told us about the assault on Rigsby, he was very shocked that some other guy has used his identity. He said that he never called.«

Jane replied: »Let me speak to Rigs for a moment. And turn off the speaker. Please.«

Lisbon handed over the phone and Jane wanted to know, so much in a whisper that only Rigsby could hear him: »The voice of the caller, do you think that it _was_ Miller?«

»Hm, probably.« Wayne answered. »I must admit, that the music in the background was loud. Maybe I mixed up something. No. It was a mistake, for sure. Don´t worry, Jane.«

»Just tell me what your first impression was. Only yes or no.«

»Yes.«

»Okay.« Patrick replied, and hung up.

»Ah…« Wayne was irritated. »Bye.« he said to the already disconnected line.

Lisbon wanted to know: »What did that mean by that?«

Rigsby replied: »I don´t know. Really. He can be strange sometimes.«

Teresa stopped the discussion: »Ask him tomorrow, when you got him here live and in color. It is late. You´ll have a rest now, Rigsby, and we will return to the hotel too. Tomorrow there will be much to do.«

Cho said: »Call me as soon as the doctors let you out, I´ll pick you up.«

Grace also bid her colleague a good night, and a few minutes to midnight they arrived in the hotel again. Although they were all tired, sleep would not come for a long time. Everyone was still too carried away by the upset about the attack on Rigsby.

:-:

Finally Teresa must have been sleeping somehow, short and not enough, but the alarm of her cell-phone was merciless. Now she had to get ready for the plan. Although suitcase was packed within minutes, she still felt as if only a strong coffee could pick her up. And something else, very deep inside seemed also be there to give her the strength to overpower the remaining sleepiness. She did not know whether to feel ashamed or just to admit it, she was looking forward to spend more time with John Miller. Of course she would have also been happy to work with Rigsby, he was one of her "boys"… But John… _hm_, he was not one of her own team, though. She shook her head. No thoughts of private nature now! The job is important, nothing else. Surely she could work together with him perfectly.

At the breakfast Van Pelt, who was also looking tired, summarized her night: »I tried to find out where the phone that called Rigsby could have been. It was somewhere in the area were we spent the evening. The caller was in the range of the same sending station as we, but it was a disposable cell phone, that´s probably destroyed by now. I tried to track it but there was no signal. The only thing we can be sure of is that the mysterious caller was nearby and that Rigsby accepted the call at nine twenty-three. He left us only one or two minutes later, and then we did not hear from him until it was ten twenty and some.«

Lisbon had to admit: »John was not with me at this time. He left me at the hotel entrance at about ten past nine. But I met him at the Police station about twenty five minutes later, where he was waiting with the quads and equipment; he prepared it all for us. I´ll talk to him while we´re driving. Keep up your good work here.«

Cho said: »Rigsby called before I went down here. He´s already awake and the doctors told him that they´ll do a final examination at ten, when they do their round. Then he´s ready to go. Before that Van Pelt and I will to the Hilo PD to talk to Chief Barren, and visit the site where he was attacked again to see it in daylight. And we pick up Jane.«

Grace explained: »If Wayne is fit enough to walk, we´ll bring him back to the crime scene too, so that he can make additions to his statement.«

Teresa smiled: »Fine, so you´ve got enough to do… give me a call if Jane is sure that the husband had something to do with the accident, otherwise we agree to phone us at six p.m. sharp every day. If everything during the day is going well, I do not expect a call.«

»Yes, boss.« Kimball and Grace in unison.

:-:

Half an hour later Agent Lisbon was waiting in front of the hotel with her trolley. She was wearing casual clothes, sun glasses and her hair open. She was surprised how relaxed John Miller looked in his off-duty-outfit, just like someone who was ready for a vacation. He drove a black car that had the sticker of a rental firm on it, and helped her to load the trolley.

»We´ll take a road that is a little bit longer, but far more beautiful than the main street.« he said. »We can tell the hotel receptionist that we took an island tour, if we arrive a little later than planned. I know that you will like it.«

»I am sure it is a nice trip. Show me your island, if you want.«

Not much later she was more than happy that he took her on the sight-seeing-drive. The island of Hawaii with its great treasures of nature looked beautiful in the morning sun. They saw the sleeping volcanoes Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea; the street crossed the island between them. There were subtropical rain forests at the southeastern sides of the mountains, and a dry and moon-surface-like plateau next to the last eruption scene. Finally the road went down to the west coast, and they had a breath taking overlook on the open sea. In the distance, nearly lost in the misty air, there was another island visible; it was a glimpse of Maui. Next to it, a little bit southwards, there was the highest point of Lanai. They stopped again and got out of the car.

»If it is really clear, you can see the islands better. But I expect that we´ll have rain or a little thunderstorm later in the afternoon.« Miller explained. »Now try to imagine how nice it is to be up here at New Years Eve. You can watch the fireworks in the air and their reflection at the ocean. Wonderful, I say. If I would dare, I would invite you to visit me at this time of the year.« They spent a few minutes looking around in silence. Then they drove on. The west coast seemed to be a little bit less wet than the east coast, but as soon as they came out on the flat coastal area it was clear that house and hotel owners had created parks with palms and native trees, bushes, and lawns of thick, green grass.

For one second it felt like holidays, like nothing really mattered. She was close to be convinced that they were here because of a mistake. Caren de Palmer had had an unhappy accident, but it was no attack, everything was ok… But it would not be Teresa Lisbon if she could be distracted so easily. She shook her head and concentrated on the plan.

Finally they arrived at the parking lot of the _Sunset Horizon Resort_. The cars could be placed under a roof that was plated with solar panels. A hotel boy was awaiting them and helped to carry the suitcases to one of the little electric cars that parked nearby. They could only go with about ten miles per hour in top speed, but were driving almost without noise.

The garden was wonderful – and well planned. One couldn't see the street or the parking lot from any place of the hotel area; it looked like as if the amazing paradise had no end. All the houses were not higher than two-storied, even the main house were the reception and the restaurant, some shops, the fitness room, a wellness spa and the massage center could be found; as well as the rooms of the main management, had only two floors. The hotel boy stopped the car in front of the entrance area, which was built out of palm- wood and glass, in combination with a dark, native volcano stone floor. Orchids and small but beautiful liana were there for decoration. They had wooden chairs and tables made of rattan and teak, the seating cushions were white. It was a breath-taking atmosphere. The hotel boy was a few steps behind them with the two trolleys, and…

That second Teresa startled in shock. She could not help it, but stopped dead and maybe her heart missed one or two beats. It was in exactly this, the most unlikely moment, when someone embraced her from behind, with a resolute but still gentle hug. Within the split of a second she knew for sure that it was Patrick Jane. To whatever he was up to, she was so overwhelmed by the unexpected situation, that she lost the ability to sort out her thoughts and could not think of an appropriate reaction. The same time she was sure that he perfectly knew how she felt now – and he liked it. _Oh my… what… why…please…no…._

But it was not over – it seemed to be getting worse. He did the strangest, most unusual thing ever, he lowered his head so close to the right side of her neck as if he was up to kiss her, but did not touch her skin by a hairs breadth, but she could feel him breathing softly. Everyone else in the lobby watched them and seemed to be enchanted; for them it must be real, and more than romantic. _My dear, look at their faces! It´s a good performance, but… what if… what if this was reality,_ her thoughts spun like a super-fast-forward-yoyo. _What would it feel like, what if I´d just… move… good gracious heavens! I must be out of sound mind… and now?_ The same moment she could feel that he touched her left hand, and suddenly she had something small and cold on her ring finger. Then it was over – or not.

Jane turned to Detective Miller, smiling: »Thank you so much, for taking care of her. I really feared that I would not make it in time, but, here I am. So much work, you know?« he grabbed Millers right hand and shook it. The Detective was as confused as Lisbon, and could not reply at once, but Jane did not care, he continued: »Thank you for showing her the nature of that wonderful island, I had this horrendous delay at the airport... ah, never mind, I am here.« he took twenty dollars out of his suit pocket and gave them to Miller. »Thank you, you are not longer needed. You´ll get the rest of the pay by check. Good bye. Aloha.« He waved like "ciao ´n bye" and looked back to Teresa: »Darling, I´ve already signed in for our suite… you must be tired after the long flight and all that sightseeing. Come on.«

This was the very moment that Lisbon had needed to cope with her shock. »Jane…« she growled through clenched teeth. She felt hot inside and cold outside, and she hold herself back from… _Yargh. I am calm!_ He had seldom before done greater mischief than that. She looked down at her left hand and saw a small golden wedding-ring there. _No. Wrong_. This _was_ far-from-maybe the worst thing ever; and he was not done yet.

John Miller stood beside them and looked from one to the other, but he backed off a step when he realized that Lisbon was really enraged. But this strange consultantdid not look like as if the furious gaze of Teresa affected him - he just carried on with his doing.

»Here she is!« he shouted to the reception-agent, pointed at Lisbon and asked: »Do you need her passport now for the check in, or is it enough if you have mine?«

The pretty Hawaiian woman shook her head: »No, no, Mister Jane, that´s ok, we only need her signature at the check-in-paper. We are happy to welcome you here, Mrs. Jane.«

»You hear that, only one single line and then we can have a very nice vacation, only the two of us.« He smiled and took Lisbon´s trolley in one hand, the other arm he placed around her back and pushed her forward with a gentle touch.

»But… but… _ack_…« John Miller was still speechless. Although this situation had totally surprised him, he was clever enough not to make a scene. He decided to watch the theatre for a while, but he was ready to act if Lisbon would say any word or give him a sign.

Meanwhile the other two had reached the reception and the Hawaiian woman pointed at the sheet of paper: »Just sign here, next to your husband.«

Lisbon took the pen as quiet and smooth as if she was in a dream. She was smiling and looked as happy as one could be; and tried to concentrate only on this simple action. "_Teresa Jane_" she wrote and then put the pen down.

»Good girl.« Jane whispered next to her, but slowly she got the impression that he realized how angry she was. His smile was somewhat uneasy now.

»Thank you for the nice welcome.« Lisbon said to the woman at the reception. »I am sure that we will have a very relaxing time here, Ms. Lahila.«

The receptionist answered: »I hope so. If there is anything to complain, please tell me or my colleagues at once. Here are your keys.« She handed over two small things made of smooth and bendable plastic. »Fix the bracelet around the wrist, so that you don´t lose it. The chip inside will open the door of your suite as well as the entrance doors to our wellness-center, the fitness-room, and the massage-lounge. You can also start the e-buggies with it; just hold the chip plate in front of the sensor for five seconds. If you want to reserve a tennis-court or rent golf equipment, you can do this here on the reception, also you can subscribe for all water sports activities. You have booked all inclusive, but nevertheless you have to show your ID to the waiter at the restaurant or the bars, whenever you order something. Have a nice stay. The hotel boy will show you your suite now.«

»One moment please, will you?« Lisbon said before they could go on. She returned to Detective Miller and whispered: »I only can apologize for the strange behavior of my colleague. We call at six, tell the others what happened. We have to live with the new situation now.« Louder she said: »Thank you for the guide. It was very well organized.«

She went back to Jane who was waiting next to the hotel boy and told him: »Oh, I can´t wait to be alone with you...« her voice was like poisoned honey.

»I think we have to talk, yes.« Patrick replied.

»You bet.« she growled.

:-:

They arrived at the suite building after a short drive. The "Southern Suite House" had only one ground and one top floor, and the single suites were arranged in a way so that no one had too close contact to the neighbor or the one below or above. Every suite had either a terrace, when it was on the top floor, or a small private garden at the sea side of the building. They must be really expensive, if you think about it, but Lisbon could not appreciate that in the moment. She kept on smiling until the hotel boy had gone away, then she looked for Jane, but he had also vanished out of sight.

Maybe he was really afraid, and for a moment she liked the thought of it. But maybe her shock was still too hard to cope with. Teresa decided for the one and only thing that was suitable right now. She took a bottle of water out of the mini-bar. After that she opened the door to the big balcony and sat down on one of the comfortable chairs, leaned back and closed her eyes. There was nothing except of the sun that streaked her skin, the sound of the waves, and the soft whisper of the palm leaves in the wind. It was wonderful.

About ten, fifteen minutes later there was the noise of the terrace door, and steps that came closer. »Talk to me please?« Jane asked. For one time he really looked like as if he was a bit uncertain about the situation, and he knew that he´d maybe gone too far.

»Do you know what you´ve done?« she replied, and her voice was calmer than she had expected it to be. »You´ve interfered in an investigation plan. Not that I am not used to it; but, by all means... you could have warned me. You left me there "pants-down" and dumb, while you played your little game. Why was it too difficult to call me, so that we could talk about it? I am sure we would have found a compromise. Enlighten me… why, Jane?«

He answered: »I thought it was a good plan. I also want to look-a-round here.«

»But you could have checked in here as a single person. You could have come back with Van Pelt, Cho or Rigsby. You could have talked to the husband and the mother first and then… whatever, Jane, whatever!« She desperately wringed her hands, while she said: »_Everything_ would be better than ending up married with you!«

Patrick blinked and seemed to be really hurt: »Oh, would it?«

One could hear a needle fall down in the frozen quietness that filled the next moment.

»Sorry.« Lisbon gasped. »I am sorry, Jane, I… I did not mean it like that, I… just, to keep up such a story is really hard.« Her voice was full of self reproach, and within a moment her anger was gone – she never meant to insult or hurt him. »I am sure it is um… _ok_ being married to you, if it´s real, you know? But not in make-believe.«

»You don´t have to apologize, I admit that I have a little bit of guilt on my side. But it´s the same plan you had with Miller. I only thought that you´re better off with me.«

Teresa took a sip of water and asked: »Why should I be better off with you?«

»Because I trust Rigsby.«

»And?« she wrinkled her brow.

He explained: »Don´t you think that this is some kind of strange? Miller calls him, lures him away and a few minutes later he gets beaten up by someone? What if Miller wanted to be sure that _he_ would be the one to come with you here, and therefore he took out Rigsby?«

»Are you serious? You don´t even know John Miller.«

»Exactly, I don´t know him and as long as he doesn´t prove that I am wrong…«

Lisbon took a deep breath and surrendered: »Ok, let´s keep that back for the moment. What can we do? Now we are stuck here, with a real mess of a plan.«

»It´s almost lunch time, what if we´d go to the restaurant? I´m hungry.«

»Should _this_ be your answer?« Lisbon asked in the first moment, but then she decided: »Ok, will do. Let´s go and have lunch. Why not? We´re here now.« Teresa stood up and went back in the suite. The terrace had two doors, one led into the bedroom, the other one to a kind of living room, where they had a big white sofa, a TV, and a table where they could eat if they ordered the room service. This living room was separated from the entrance area by a thin paper-like wall element, and from here also a door led into the bedroom, and one in the bathroom, so that it was not necessary to walk in the bedroom first to get in there.

In the sleeping chamber there was one single, very big and massive bed that was covered with a tent of shiny curtain. A wardrobe was at the hind wall, and a smooth carpet lay on the floor, the bathroom door was in the side wall, next to a smaller cupboard. Jane had put her small trolley next to the bed, but there was no piece of clothing inside that would really fit to a vacation like this. She had only "business-stuff" with her, the only exception was the green cocktail dress.

_Whatever_. There was no need to stay any longer than a few days, as soon as they had found out that something was strange here, they could come back as themselves, and tore the place apart. She sighed, and looked down again on her brand-new wedding ring.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Making new friends 

When they were walking through the hotel area, it was close to be a pity that they weren´t really on a holiday. This strange change of feelings was almost indescribable, as if one was torn in two different directions at the same time.

»It´s like a lullaby, isn´t it?« Jane said. »You can´t think that anything bad happens here. It´s all light and bright, like being in paradise.«

»You are right.« Lisbon answered. »But we have to try and concentrate. I´ll summarize you the facts of the case, if you want.«

He shook his head: »No, thank you, I´d like to get an unprejudiced look at this hotel at first. You should also try to see this place with open eyes.«

»True. Let us go to the beach. It is still enough time to have a first look around there.«

»Oh, can you never stop thinking of work, woman? But ok, let´s go.« he answered, and they changed the direction.

The beach was amazing, it seemed to have four main colors; there were blackish volcanic rocks and white coral sand, the blue of the sea, and the green leaves of the palms that were at the rim of the beach. The umbrellas and the little beach bar that was at the middle of the bay were also colored in this way, to create a view of harmony. There were not as many people at the beach as they had expected, only about a third of the umbrellas and loungers were occupied. Some people were in the water, others relaxed in the shadows.

»Look, there.« Lisbon said and pointed to the northern end of the beach, where a flow of dark, volcanic rocks built the end of the sandy bay. »There are stairs up that rock plateau. This must be the "Sundown Rock", where Caren de Palmer was last seen alive by other guests. Maybe we can get a track of her last steps from there.«

Jane nodded: »We´ll try after lunch. But we must not hurry up too much. One question too early or too eager asked could ruin it all. If they have something to hide they won´t tell us right away. We have to be tender and calm, to comfort them.«

»Just admit that you want to have some time to feel like you are on vacation.«

»I admit that I want to have some time to feel like I´m on vacation.« he smiled.

Lisbon reminded him: »But remember that the CBI is in charge for the hotel expense, and they are going to chew off our necks if we spend too much.«

»I am sure you know, what I am going to answer now?«

»I´m afraid, I do.« she knew quite well that he did not care for that.

Jane turned round: »Lunch. The best time to get to know other people.«

:-:

He was right; almost all guests seemed to be at the hotel´s big restaurant. They had mainly teak and rattan furniture here. The tables were made of wood and glass. Two third of the restaurant were under a roof, the rest outside, decorated with umbrellas and small pot-plants. The guests did not arrive all the same time; some where there when Jane and Lisbon entered, others were behind them. The menu was a good theme to start conversations. They were new here; many other guests looked curiously at them, and as soon as they had sat down the two people at the next table turned over to greet.

»Hi there. You must be new here, do you? Arrived today?« the man said. He was about the age of Jane, his hair was brown and the eyes blue. He wore an easy Hawaiian shirt and shorts; around his neck there was a thick golden chain. His wife or girlfriend was a lot younger, maybe in her low twenties, slim and blonde, with the curves of a magazine girl.

»Right, yeah.« Lisbon answered. »How you know?«

The man laughed and explained: »You´re still as white as a cottage-cheese, and you still wear those business-clothes-things. Well I was also like this when Honey and I arrived, still deep in thoughts about my work, business, business, business. But that goes away.«

Jane took the lead of the conversation: »Is there something in the menu that you can really recommend? Or are there things that we should better not try?«

The other man smiled: »No, no, everything is good, I think, it just depends on which taste you like. There´s very delicious sea food, but also the meat varieties are wonderful. Drinks… beer, the house vine, soft drinks, and water, are all inclusive. But if you like it more exclusive, you can also buy Champaign or stuff like that, they are also ok.«

Now the young woman started to speak too: »I like the salads and the fruit, the vegetables, and those ultra-light meals they serve. Very good, but low in calories and fat.«

For a moment they were disturbed in their conversation, because the waitress came nearer for the drink´s order; they told her their wishes and she went to get it.

Then the man said: »I am Taylor, by the way. My wife Honey…« he pointed to his side. »We are here the second time; a little present to our second wedding day. So we already know what to expect from this place. If you want to have tips or special advise, you can ask.«

»How nice of you, thanks.« Jane replied. »We are Teresa and Patrick, and we are here for the first time. But you must know the whole hotel area. Are there some special romantic places that one must not miss? And are there spots that are not really worth it?«

Honey said: »I like the Hot Springs. And the "Sundown Rock". They are gorgeous.«

Tailor kissed her that moment, maybe out of love, maybe to stop her talking, then he explained: »Well, I also recommend the _Rock_ and the _Springs_, but you must be fast to reserve them. At dusk they are hard to get. I also like the massage center and the golf course. Honey says she loves the fitness area and the wellness spa. She also goes jogging in the morning; there are good trails that lead through the area. But…«

Honey told: »Taylor-Darling told me that I must not go jogging as long as there is not enough light. A few days ago a young woman was gravely injured because she stumbled in the dim evening light. That was a shock! Choppers all around, paramedics, even the police.«

Teresa gasped pathetic: »Someone was injured? Is it dangerous to go jogging here?«

»Never, never!« Taylor waved his hands. »That poor girl only suffered from over-estimation of her abilities. A human being is no night owl and it was dark when she tried to run on that difficult rock path. One has to be careful if its day when you walk there – the hotel managers tried to keep this place as nature-life-like as possible. She fell down and was unlucky. But they said she´ll live. So let us hope the best and enjoy our vacation.«

Jane requested: »Could it be, that she was maybe scared or something else, that made her lose her balance?« but in the same breath he smiled: »Ah, forget it, I am just curious, can´t get it off, you know? If you are in insurance-stuff every accident has two sides to you: When do you have to pay and when can you say that this was the clients fault.«

Taylor laughed: »Yes, yes, I understand. I work in kind of the same business; not for private persons, but for big companies. Much more money, you know? I say that the girl or her husband would not have much chance to win a process against the hotel. The rules say that it is on the guest´s own response if one uses the nature-trail-paths on the rocks without appropriate equipment, and at night she would have needed light to see her way, wouldn´t she? Shit happens. There is nothing more to it. They would lose it in any case.«

Honey babbled: »But Taylor-Darling, there was this hotel boy who said that sometimes trespassers try to come to the Hot Springs illegally, they climb the fence, and once there were some people with canoes…«

In that moment the waitress had returned with the drinks. She must have heard the last words, because she seemed to be a little bit nervous. The fact that there might be illegal trespassers seemed to mean something to her, but she tried to conceal it with her professionalism, and asked: »Your menu order please? We have an open salad, fruit, and dessert buffet, so you only need to order your main courses and soup, if you like.«

A few minutes later they were alone again.

Taylor explained: »Hah, folks, forget that rumor, it is just chit-chat in the spa, while the women get their mud-baths and beauty packages. Of course it is a secret, adventurous story if there are some "oh so spooky" trespassers. Give no damn on it. Once when this hotel was new, there were some greenheads, those keep-the-nature-safe-guys that protested against the hotel. But they do it with everything. Let´s talk about something else… I can recommend also the island tour that they offer every Tuesday. This is a guided sightseeing to the most beautiful places of Hawaii. But the other tour, that high-seas fishing tour, is disappointing. You can catch some fish, yes, but they forbade me to bring down that six feet marlin, that I got on my hook. I had to let that fish go, because of some stupid save-the-nature-law.«

Teresa answered through clenched teeth: »What a pity.«

That moment, Jane´s phone rang out: »Sorry for the inconvenience, I´ll be quick.« he said. »It´s one of our boys.« He answered the call, while Lisbon looked a little bit like _oh-no-anything-but-that_, but she kept on with being happy and calm; there was no other chance.

»Yeah, my big one, it´s dad speaking. You fine? I heard from mom that you had a little accident just yesterday. I´m sorry, that I did not come home ere I took the plane to Hawaii. I wanted to surprise mom and she really was happy to see me here.«

»Aah…yup?« Rigsby answered at the other end of the line, but he tried to accommodate at the situation and answered: »I´m ok, I can leave the hospital soon, the others are here to pick me up. We only worried because you did not call to tell us at which time you´ll be here. But it sounds as if you are with the boss. Anything else?«

Jane concealed a smile and told him: »Be nice to your brother and the little one, will you? And please don´t mess up the house too much. I allow you one party at Saturday, but no alcohol of course, and look that Gracie doesn´t mix up with one of your college guys, will you? You want to speak to mom?«

»No thank you, I call her in the evening.«

»Bye, boy.« Jane hung up and put the phone away.

Taylor asked: »So you have children?«

Lisbon cleared her throat and then she said: »Yes we have… eh, three.« _It couldn´t come any worse now, so why not? Just keep on talking. Everything is fine… smile. _

Patrick bowed nearer to Taylor: »You must know; that´s the point why we never had a real honeymoon, just some short huddly-wuddly-thing at a cozy cove hotel in California, next to the town where we lived by then. You know that were other times, then. Had to be fast.«

»Really?« Taylor was at least as curious in stories as his wife. »Why that?«

»I met her at my last year in high school, she was three classes younger than me and we started dating when she was fifteen – well, one thing led to another, you know. Break up, meet again, a little fight over jealousy, come together, teenage stuff, going to movies, dating, school ball, _eh,_ yeah, and then there was our big one, on the way. We married in a hurry and he´s been born a few weeks after her seventeenth. Can´t believe it, really.«

Honey and Taylor looked at them in silent awe. »And…« the woman gasped.

Patrick carried on with his nerve racking stuff, as if it was the most usual thing in the world to tell people stories: »She was so brave, my Teresa, went to school almost to the last month, and kept on studying at home, and finished High School a little bit earlier than her classmates, because all the teachers were so helpful. I was so proud of her!«

»I was proud of him too.« Teresa now said. »He went on with his College plans and took a night job, only to take care of us. I wanted to start College too, but then there was our second one on the way and with two little baby boys I had to cut my ambitions a bit.«

Jane smiled at her and continued: »But she never gave up, used correspondence degree courses, and went at some college classes as soon as the boys were big enough to be with her grandmother. When our little one, Grace, was born, my wife had finished the College. But the girl is almost fifteen now, and the boys twenty-one and twenty-two.«

»I am twenty-two.« said Honey. »I could not imagine to have _two_ little children at my age. That must be loads of work! You must come with me, Teresa, to the wellness-spa. The ladies there like stories. Oh, this will be fun. I have a friend there, Melissa, who also had her first child when she was right out of high school. We meet at four pm there to get a beauty treatment. Will you come?«

Lisbon said: »Of course. I´m sure this will be interesting.«

To their luck the conversation was interrupted again by the waitress who brought the meal, so they did not have to invent too many new things right away.

»I fear that Jane has finally crossed the line.« Wayne said to his two colleagues, who were waiting for news. He had a funny undertone in his voice, but was nevertheless some kind of uneasy. »Can´t wait how this story´s gonna end.«

Cho asked: »What´d he say?«

»He said he´s with mom and that I should be nice to you, and keep an eye on our little sister.« he giggled. »I still can´t believe it.«

Grace shook her head: »Okay, let´s put back the strange aspect in this for a moment, and summarize the facts. He´s with the boss at the hotel. After all we can assume, he has thrown out Detective Miller. Now there is the question why he did that. He could have checked in the hotel anyway; without such a dangerous story. Well… I think it´s hard to keep up that for long. Anyone will notice that they are… um, yes, only _playing_ family.«

Rigsby answered: »I assume that it has something to do with that I told him that I am sure, that it was Miller, who called me yesterday evening. But maybe I was misled in this, I haven´t talked to Miller much and cannot say how his voice might sound on telephone, mixed up with the background noise. Maybe I was wrong.«

»Hm. Maybe you were wrong, but you can´t deny the fact that you wouldn´t have been attacked if you would have stayed at the beach bar.« Cho said. »If there is some cause why Jane does not trust Miller entirely, we must keep that in mind. Let´s cover Jane, and play the surprised ones. I know this might sound a little bit strange, but…«

Grace nodded: »I understand. We know Miller is a respected person at the Hilo PD, and we have no real proof that he´s got something to do with that phone call. But I also trust Wayne´s intuition; and Jane is seldom wrong. If there is something true to it, John Miller might be dangerous, or at least up to something we won´t like.«

Rigsby was the same opinion: »Let´s keep an eye on him and play this one on Jane´s rules. We carry on with our investigations as we promised – but with an open ear to everything suspicious.« Then he laughed out loud. »God, I hope that they get along with this story… it would be loads of fun to watch it.«

Cho added: »Yes, it would. But let´s go now. Grace and I had a first look at the site where we found you yesterday, in daylight already, before we came here. Come with us back there and take another look. We´ll complete the report on the crime scene.«

»Yup.« said Rigsby. »Would one of you please help me to get dressed?«

Grace sighed: »I´ll do.« she turned to Cho: »Would you please try to get us a wheelchair and the crutches that the doctors promised?«

»Ok, see you soon.«

:-:

»What? Why do you complain? I brought you in that chit-chat-circle so fast that you´d never have thought of it.« Jane protested, but with a smile.

»I never wanted to be in a chit-chat-circle.« Lisbon answered. »I hate this blabber- jabber-nonsense-talking. But thank you, by the way, you did your best. Maybe it _is_ useful to listen to the rumors that circle round here about the accident. And what are you up to?«

»I think I´ll play a round of golf with Taylor later on, maybe I get some more "interesting" things out of him, but right now it would be really, really, really nice to have a relaxing afternoon at the beach, wouldn´t you like it too?«

She shook her head: »I´ve got no swimsuit nor bikini, or even some beach dress. I´m here for work. Not for joy. I´ll go and have a look at this Hot Springs site, if you don´t mind.«

»I don´t mind.« he replied. »Have fun, then. See ya round.« he changed the direction and was out of sight within a second.

Lisbon sighed, then she also changed the direction, to get to the top of the "Sundown Rock". The sight there was marvelous. If one would, he could take a photo of the whole southern part of the hotel area, inclusive the beach and beach bar, in the back between the trees there was a glimpse of their "Southern Suite House". The west side offered a breath-taking look on the sea. Down at the bottom of the rocks, where the waves hit the land, robust coral stocks could be seen, and that little reef went in a bow approximately parallel to the beach on to the other side of the bay where it melted into some lower rocks again. It was about three to five feet under water and a natural protection to the inner bay. The water there was calm and shallow, outside of the reef there were much bigger waves and the ocean seemed to get deeper fast. A boat that towed three floating tires with screaming young people went by outside of the reef, maybe this was one of the water sports activities one could do here. The speed boat had the name of the hotel on its side; therefore there must be some kind of harbor somewhere, where the boat lay when it was out of duty.

Teresa went northwards, on the little trail on the rocks. It was nice made; almost no artificial material had been used. The steps and plateaus of the path were carved directly out of the stone. About eighty yards north and a few feet deeper than the "Sundown Rock´s" plateau, where the hotel had flattened the rock and put some possibilities to sit, the path split up into two trails, one leading down seawards to the smaller, rocky side bay, the other following the upper rim of the rocks. This must be the place where Caren de Palmer had her accident. In the report there was something about the crossway on the rock path. To be sure, Teresa followed the upper path for a while, but ended up at the highest point of the very steep vis-à-vis rock, where the path turned away landwards from the rocky place to a nice garden area, where she could see another of the hotel´s buildings. In difference to the "Southern Suite House", here the there were ten or twelve little houses, each one in the traditional Hawaiian island style – or as a tourist may think that the traditional Hawaiian style was. They did not look really bigger than the suites, but every house was surrounded by a little private garden and had also a small private pool with it. All together, if you don´t look too close, you could feel like in an old, native village here. They had also figures of Hawaiian gods and culture made of wood and stone. The path ran on around this village district, and ended up at the outer fence. Lisbon stopped there, and went along the fence until she found a small place where no lianas had been planted to cover it from the inside. The fence was made of wire-netting, and approximately eight foot high, she could hardly reach the upper end with stretched arms. There was some kind of small house not far away where a man seemed to be on guard. Also the outer side of the terrain was not as full with plants, bushes and trees as the hotel area. The security must see trespassers coming at a good distance.

The trail followed the fence for a while, then it turned right again and Lisbon could see another hotel building, which had two floors. At the other side of this building were three tennis courts, and landside of them there was the outer fence again. She kept on walking, while another young woman came running towards her with a headset in her ears.

The younger woman greeted and ran on – of course Teresa was not the only person here. She found a shortcut back to the rocks and passed by a little botanical garden where the hotel showed the most important Hawaiian plants and trees, then she was back at the cliff and went down the small flight of stairs to the rocky Hot Springs bay.

Soon she was at the rim of the land, where a small flat landing was carved out of the stone. The sea was not only black because of the dark rocks, it was really deep right here at the shore, there must be a steep ravine below. The waves did not really hit the stone here, but glugged up and down like they use to touch the pier´s side in a deep harbor. A wave can only rise and roll if it "feels ground" so to say, if the ground was too deep for the swell, there was just a slow up and down, like here.

From this little landing the path separated again; to five trails this time. Each one had a number painted on it with silver color, and each of them led to a round pool that was carved directly into the stone. The volcanic material was smooth and tender where it was polished, and each little round pond had a small, vertical gap in its ocean-near side, where the water of the sea could spill in and out, so it was a natural cleaning at every ebb and flow. This gap was too narrow to allow any greater fish to swim into the little round ponds, and as she looked closer she could see that there was an iron grille in front of the gap. No one was there now, and Teresa knelt down to put one hand in the water. The temperature must be something close or slightly hotter to body heat, not too warm, but really relaxing.

»Ma´am?« a person suddenly asked behind her.

»Yes?« she replied and stood up.

A young Chinese pool boy, maybe barely eighteen, was standing there with a pool-cleaning kit besides him. »Sorry to disturb but the pools are not open now. It is cleaning time. Please return later.« he said, his English being not very good.

Lisbon asked him: »How do they work? Is the whole sea in this bay so hot?«

»No, Ma´am. I show you if you want. You must know, I am supposed to clean them every day. I know how it works. There are some pipes that lead to holes in the ground of the pool. These pipes go to the Hot Springs water that comes out of the floor of the rock in this bay. The hot water would not be strong enough to fight the ocean water else, it is too much current here. But the hotel has drilled holes and pipes in the ground to bring the hotter water up faster, to the pools, before it cools too much.«

He pointed at a small metallic box next to the entrance steps to the pool, which was fixed on a metal post. »You see this?«

»Yes.« the CBI-Agent replied.

»There is a button for hot and a button for cool. You can open the pipe valve more or you can close it. More hot water comes out if you open, of course. And if you close it stays cooler. But this only is working with safety. Maximum temperature of the water is 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Minimum is small above sea temperature. As you like it best.«

»I understand.« Lisbon said. »Thank you for your explanations.«

»A pleasure, lady.« the pool boy said. »But I must work now, the first reservation is four in the afternoon and I must be sure that there are no dead fish or something.«

Teresa wished him good bye, but then she turned around again: »Are there many dead fish around here?«

»Not so, because the sea gulls and other fish and crab eat them, I only find them when flood has left them at a higher part of the rock. And I clean every day. But it smells, you know and no one wants to smell dead fish here. Here is a very romantic place.«

Lisbon smiled: »Of course not.« The people that came here had surely other things in their minds than to worry about the stench of a dead fish that has been rotting in the sun for the half of the day. She went back upstairs but all along the way there was so specific sign where Caren de Palmer had her accident. The black rocks concealed everything.

:-:

Meanwhile Jane was on his round in the main house of the hotel area. In the ground floor there were the lobby, the restaurant and the wellness-area, and the fitness-center, as well as a shop for a high-standard beach ware and sun-glasses. In the first floor the main attractions were the massage studio, a beauty palace and a hairdressing salon. There also was a small shop for exclusive perfumery, creams, a little bit jewellery, and a one hour photo shop. The management was in the second floor. There was nothing obviously suspicious, but he decided to poke them a little bit, maybe he could read something in their change of minds.

So he went to the reception, where the pretty Miß Lahila was still on her shift.

»You remember me? From tomorrow morning?« he asked.

She smiled: »Of course I do.« her smile was even wider now, but she tried to conceal it by looking away. »I am sorry, Mister Jane. Excuse me, please.« she said and tried to be professional, while she awaited his next words.

Jane asked: »Why should I excuse you? Come on, tell me, I do not bite.«

»Yes, sir.« she blushed. »My colleague and I still… you know it was so _romantic_ how you welcomed your wife a few hours ago, she seemed to be really surprised.«

»Oh yes, she was.« Patrick also smiled. »I don´t blame you for telling me that… I love to surprise her, and I would do anything for her. But this comes close to the point I want to speak of to you. I have request…«

Miß Lahila asked: »Tell me please. I am here to help you with all questions.«

»During our lunch another guest told that there was once a problem with trespassers, which jumped over the fence or something like that. My wife loves to take her evening walks, and now… you see, I want to ask if this is safe. Or should I be concerned?«

The receptionist got clearly upset about that, but tried to be calm: »Sir, I can assure you that this is no problem in this hotel area. We allow no admittance for unauthorized persons, and every intruder will be punished. Our outer fence is guarded twenty-four/seven. Whoever told you this must have been referring old rumors. I have also heard of it, I admit. There were some privacy violators while the hotel was still under construction, but since then we have no problems. I assure you that every spot in this hotel is safe.«

»Thank you.« Patrick replied. »That is really good to hear. But some other things now, I´d like to buy my lady a nice bathing-suit or something, what she can also wear in the wellness area. Of course it must be a surprise…« he has changed the theme very fast, in order to distract her, and she at once bit the bait.

The woman answered: »Yes, I can help. I recommend a sapphire green bikini, without too many applications, and in addition to that a semi-see-through wrap-around cloth, also in harmonic colors. She can use this as beach dress or when she is in the wellness oasis as a light cover. I think we have all you need in our shop.« she smiled again.

»I´ll look at that.« he said, and turned around. _Yes, they had a problem with unauthorized intruders. _Maybe it was really a theft or rape attempt, that was the main cause of Caren Jenkins accident, and the hotel tried to conceal it of course.

:-:

When Lisbon returned from her walk through the area, it was already time to prepare for the chit-chat-meeting with the other women. She shivered in thought of it, but maybe Jane was right and she could find out something new. At least she would get to know all the rumors about the accident, and if she had the luck some more stories about the hotel, and "oh-so-interesting" things that happened here.

To her surprise she found a little present on the bed, it was a set of a sapphire green bikini wear, a big, elegant wrap-around-cloth in green with palm leave printing, some flip flops, and small beach bag for the most important things she might need. »Have fun. Yours, _P_.« a small note beside the stuff said, and she sighed again. How should she enjoy it with giggling and babbling tourists, how incredibly funny…


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: One investigation closed?

Detective Miller had returned to the Hilo PD – Building at about one in the afternoon. Rigsby had been finally out of the hospital by then and the three CBI Agents had had a last look at the side street where he was attacked, before they gathered in the police headquarter to type down the unsatisfying results of this investigation. There they met Miller, and of course he had a short discussion with them about Jane´s strange behavior.

But in the end it seemed to be a piece of luck that Detective Miller was back in Hilo. It was his knowledge of the minor and medium "do-no-goods", that maybe knew more than the other witnesses, that was the decisive key. Miller could do nothing to help Lisbon in the moment, so he focused all his concentration to solve the riddle about the attack on Rigsby.

A few telephone calls later he said: »My contact man in the scene told me something interesting. Of course he could not be too detailed, because no one ever knows if there is one that overhears you… but he got a good hint for us. The gang that controls the quarter of Hilo where Rigsby was attacked, is very upset and in alert state. They do not like it if someone else beats up a tourist in their territory. This particular gang does not do in this stuff; I mean robbery. They have other business – I do not say that I like it, but I know that this is true. They do in drug and alcohol stuff, and try constantly to keep their waves low… even we, the police, have difficulties to get on their track, therefore our contact man is very important. But the attack happened in one of their streets, so they are unhappy, because we were there and there will be much rumor for a while, so that people might avoid that quarter of the town – that means no tourists or citizens who want to buy something. Whoever it was, that had done this big mischief; the gang does not like it. But this is not the _really_ interesting fact. Of course the gang knows in the meantime that the attacker used a wood-stick to bring Rigsby down; and this _wood stick_ meant something to them. Two gang members, who had their "night-shift" alongside the beach, where young people like to make party in their cars, said that a hectic guy ran into them yesterday night, only across the next corner to the place where Rigsby was attacked. This guy was clothed in black and had a strange, oddly formed stick with him; that he dropped on the beach when he changed the direction to avoid too close contact with the men. They said a quad left the parking lot a few seconds later at high speed.« He had turned to Rigsby then: »If you´d see you the wooden stick again, could you remember it?«

»Maybe.« Wayne answered. »It had a strange curve and a thick knot in it.«

So they were at the beach fifteen minutes later. Unfortunately the place where the suspect had left back his weapon was near the exit of the parking lot and many people had crossed the area since the morning. Even worse; there was no piece of driftwood near or far, but then Cho pointed out to the side of the beach where two official, rentable fire-places were built. They consisted of a concrete floor and an oven made of bricks. One of them was burning, and a happy family group had a barbecue party there, with camping tables, seats, and a big parasol. Two children were poking the fire with longer wood-pieces; a woman was carving thin sticks for Marshmallows out of some other driftwood parts.

Miller sighed: »Oh no…« he shook his head. »This is the worst thing possible. It is not forbidden to collect driftwood and burn it. Let´s be quick, maybe we can save something.«

But there was nothing that they could do. When Miller said that they were the police, the family father of course showed them the permission form that they rented the place the whole afternoon. There was a little pile of driftwood left, but it was only small pieces. So the three Agents and the Detective excused themselves for the inconvenience they´d made the family, and asked finally, if someone could remember a bigger stick of wood, but no one could. The piece of evidence was gone, and with it the possibility to get fingerprints or DNA.

»What if someone just took it to play with his dog or only threw it in the water for fun?« Rigsby tried to think of every option.

»We can try.« Miller said. »But if it is in the water, the ebb would have taken it out and away. We can only hope that someone threw it into the bushes. Another possibility would be that the beach cleaning crew took it away – every morning the collection department cleans the town´s beaches and empties the trash bins. If that driftwood was too close to the parking lot or one of the trash bins, it´s gone.«

Grace asked: »Where do they bring the trash to?«

»I am afraid it goes to the garbage truck and to the incinerating plant. We´re too late.«

:-:

So they had to return to the police headquarter without results, but it was not a good welcome there. Something had happened. The first impression was that it could have something to do with Caren de Palmer. They were afraid that she had died, and that their investigation had changed from a living person´s accident to a deadly mishap or murder.

It was not about Caren de Palmer, but still hard enough. Chief Barren awaited her boss with a solemn face and said: »We have an accident at the two-hundred, the Pahua-Rivulet-Bridge. Two photographers who were on a bike tour, found a person there; laying face down in the river bed. They say a quad is next to this person, but they did not climb down to see if the person is still alive, it is too dangerous.«

»Of course it is too dangerous for the civilians to climb down!« Miller insisted. »Call them back and tell them that they have to remain on the street until we come. We don´t want to be in the situation that we have to save three persons.« He looked out of the window. »And we have to be fast, it looks like rain. The rivulet is usually not more than a few inches deep, a place where you can walk thru with your bare feet, but at rain it is of course a channel for the waters. Connors!« he yelled at a police officer. »You drive me, fast.«

Miller turned around to the three Agents of the CBI: »I am sorry, that I have to do this now, but I don´t want to burden my colleagues with the black face of death, as long as I can avoid it. If you want you can call the garbage collectors that were on the beach today, maybe they have found the missing stick, by chance. Just to be sure that we tried everything.«

Cho asked: »Shouldn´t we better accompany you? We are from the major case squad and death is our constant shadow.«

The Detective smiled: »No, that is not necessary. Take care that everything is done to be sure that we haven´t missed one thing about that cowardly attack on Wayne. And call Lisbon, at six, if I am not back yet. Tell her the best wishes from me, and that I´ll be there whenever she needs support.«

Grace promised: »We´ll do.«

Miller went on – and he was right, he had to hurry. There were big clouds coming up from the southeast. They looked like some heavy rain.

The three from the CBI had to decide where they wanted to start their almost hopeless attempt to get any evidence. At first they went back to the places at the desks the local PD had offered them, but then Van Pelt shook her head: »I go back to the beach. I just can´t leave it like this. I have to take a closer look. I think we haven´t tried hard enough there.«

Rigsby nodded: »I come with you.«

»No, thank you, your crutches won´t work very well in the sand.« Grace replied. »But you could call the garbage company, and go there, if they have a piece of driftwood there.«

Cho agreed: »I´ll help him with that.«

Grace asked one of the police officers to bring her back to the beach, where she started her search immediately. The barbecue-party-family was still there, but had started to pack their things together; slowly, but with the goal to get everything beyond the umbrella as soon as it would start to rain.

She went to them and requested: »You remember me? My colleagues and I were here about twenty minutes ago. May I ask you a favor… I mean, not especially you, but your children, if you allow it?«

»Of course, ask them.« the father said. »It is nothing dangerous, of course?«

»No. I need just a little help with the police work.«

The three children gasped in awe: »Police work? We can do police work? May we, dad, may we, please? Police work is so cool! And Tommy Wilcox will be sooo jealous!«

The father sighed: »Of course. What is it you need, Ma´am?«

Van Pelt explained: »We are still searching for a piece of driftwood that is really important for us. It is about as long as an arm; and a very bad man used it to hurt one of my colleagues, the man you saw, who had to use crutches to walk. You remember him?«

The children nodded in unison.

Grace continued: »We think that this bad man lost his weapon somewhere here in this area. If we find it, we can maybe get the fingerprints and catch the villain. Will you help me to search the bushes and the beach area for it? But please stay in constant sight distance to your parents, ok, and return here to them if it starts to rain, even if you don´t find anything. Let´s try, but don´t be disappointed if we find nothing. It is only a search.«

The three kids ran away, cheering, but with open eyes. Grace went to the water line first, where she looked in both directions to the end of the bay. It was a flat bay, not much carved in the land, easy for a piece of driftwood to float away, this was bad.

As if this investigation was doomed, they all together could not find any driftwood that would fit in size and weight, and when it started to rain Grace stood under the umbrella for a while with the family. The kids looked disappointed although she had tried to comfort them.

Now she said: »Don´t be sad, kids. You´ve helped me a lot. You have helped me to proof, that this piece of driftwood that we were looking for is no longer on this beach. You have been a great help in the investigation of this crime scene. Thanks to you, the police now knows, that we definitely missed nothing here. Good work, all of you.«

»Really?« the oldest boy asked. »But we found nothing.«

»That´s also a result.« Van Pelt explained. »Now the police can be sure that here is no place left that they did not look at, this is a very good. But I have to go now, thanks for the dry place… I´ll run to the PD. The rain is not cold or something… thanks again.«

She started a short run to the parking lot, but when she reached the other end of that parking area, and changed to the sidewalk of the beach street, she was soaking wet. The water was really warm and more like a shower than rain, but the constant drops that fell in her eyes were interfering with her vision. And it was that moment when an unknown person stepped in her way and grabbed her at both upper arms.

:-:

»I am so exhausted, I can´t tell you.« Lisbon groaned when they finally arrived in their suite. It was dark outside since hours and the day had been very long indeed. She could hardly believe that she had left Hilo right this morning. It was difficult right now to remember everything that she´d done in the past hours; it was simply too much. Teresa tried to use the minutes she needed in the bathroom to enjoy a short time of silence, then she changed to her night gown and wrapped herself in the thin housecoat they had in the hotel´s wardrobe. She was so overtired that she felt cold although it was a warm night.

She stretched her arms, and asked loud: »Jane, I hope that they called you too? I was still with the ladies then, and had the phone in the locker.« She sat down on the bed.

Jane, who was in the living room, answered: »Yes. I had the luck to be at the beach that moment so I could talk without being overheard. I summarize their day.« he went to the bedroom and sat down on one edge of the bed. For the first time this evening Lisbon recognized that he also looked worn-out, and in that moment she had the urgent wish to tell him that this talk could wait until they had a little rest, but he had already started.

»They were all together, Miller, Rigsby, Cho and Van Pelt, when they called. They said they´ve tried all day to find out more on the attack on Wayne. But it was all dead end, although they had a trace to the driftwood first. Unfortunately it turned out that this wood piece is gone forever. A big rain washed away the last evidence on the side street so they closed the crime scene there. Dead end number two. But then there was another thing; a very suspicious coincidence, if you ask me… Tourists found a dead quad-driver in a river bed near Hilo. Miller went out to look at this person and now you can guess what he found.«

»I have no ambitions to guess at this late night time.« Lisbon informed him. »Tell me, and then there´s lights off and sleep for today.«

Patrick gave her a tired smile and answered: »Oh, I think after that there won´t be much of "lights off and sleep" as I know you.« he sighed. »But fair enough. This man, the dead quad driver, wore black clothes, a storm mask, but no helmet. Miller found some loose paper bills in the victim´s trousers-pockets, and between two of those complete wet bills there was a paper sheet out of a note block or something. He mentioned that it was very thin and very bad reacting to water – but it was a wallet-note with two phone numbers and one name: Grace´s, _yes_, our Grace Van Pelt´s landline and cell-phone number.«

»This really, is…« Teresa immediately longed for her cell-phone and was up to dial.

Jane stopped her: »Wait a moment, I am not ready. Miller brought the money and this old paper piece back with him to the Hilo PD and Rigsby identified that paper as one of his own. Wayne had, blushing, to admit that, he never took that note out of his wallet… sweet, isn´t it? He carried it with him as some kind of lucky charm. The man that died out there had _his_ money and was in the same outfit Rigsby had described, and two whatever-witnesses said that a man in black clothes lost a piece of driftwood on the beach next to the place where Rigsby was attacked – and heard a _quad_ leave the parking lot. This is an extraordinary strange, but closed circle of events. The attacker of Rigsby died while he was on the run, and we have no statement from him and no other suspects.«

Lisbon sighed: »Oh dear, this case can´t get worse. So there is a dead main suspect for the attack on Rigsby and no valuable evidence. The weapon disappeared and the witnesses are all uncertain or not really reliable persons.« Teresa was not very happy about that. »It´s strange... I have to call them.«

»They know, Lisbon. They´re all grown up, and besides, it is way past ten, let them sleep. You should try too.« He smiled. »And there is something else. I tell you if you promise to lay down and take a rest after that.«

She took a deep breath and asked: »Ok. I´ll do. What about the bed? You take it?«

»No, thank you, I prepared the couch, in the other room. It´s all yours.« he answered, and stood up. He yawned, and then he said to her at low voice: »Grace called me a second time, a little bit later. She was alone in her hotel room at that time. She told me that a person, who did not wish to show his or her face, came to her at a lonely street corner, in the middle of a strong afternoon rain. The person´s voice was disguised, but she could swear that it was a man – he tried to stay stooped to conceal his real size. Whatever… this character told her that he knew that she was one of the foreign police officers that worked on the accident of Caren de Palmer, and that this conversation has to stay between the _foreign_ officers only. He did not know that you are with the CBI, but he knew that you are from outside. So you see, this person did _not_ trust the locals. And then the spooky meeting was nearly over, the stranger only told her something else, you see: "That we should take a look at the water". And then he was gone, and left no trace, especially not in the rain. I think he met her on purpose, out there in the thunderstorm.«

Lisbon was confused: »Um…"_Look at the water"_, what does this person mean?«

»I don´t know.« Jane replied. »I really don´t know, but it seemed very important to that anonymous, that the local police _must not_ know about the meeting. For me this is the most important point in that whole story.« He sighed and sounded so weary that one could hardly tell. »I need to think about that for a while.« he informed her and turned to leave.

»Good night.« she called after him.

Soon it was dark and quiet in the bedroom, only the distant sound of the waves mixed up with the smooth island wind, but sleep would not come for a while, although it was very late now. Teresa was still awake, at first she had been thinking about the telephone call and the new facts, but there was some thought that kept nagging her inside. She knew very well what burdened her; and as if she needed an additional a proof, she could hear that Jane was coughing, but seemed to try to conceal it. She turned round, maybe it was nothing, but…

At last she opened the door to the living room and saw at first that Jane was still watching TV, but he pushed the "mute" button when he recognized her; and turned round, but he made no sound, he only looked back at her.

»I must know something.« she said. »What kind of doctor was it?«

»Kind of _what_?« he asked, sounding confused and closed the same time.

She took a deep breath, then she continued: »The doctor that you´ve been at, when we left. Everything is ok with you, is it?«

Jane answered: »I do not know, about what exactly we are discussing now; but yes, I am all right. And…« suddenly he started to smile, stood up and went to his trolley, which was on the floor right behind the couch. »You are really concerned about me, I am sorry… I did not want to cause trouble, but you left me no time to explain. You were up and away to Hawaii…« he stood up and showed her a little green paper bag, with some hard content. »This was a misunderstanding. I never said doc – like in _doctor_; I told Rigsby that I must go to Doc. Doc is a name. Well, commonly he is known as Dawg "Doc" Dunninger. He´s a very, very old friend of mine, I know him since I was a little boy of about six or seven. I sneaked in his wagon at night and tried everything that was there – the next day I was so sick that I had no chance to conceal that it was me, who was the little "do no good". But we got friends in time. He´s a real fossil now, but still good in business – at county- and other fun fairs.«

»A county fair man?« Lisbon asked in slight disbelief, and looked in the paper bag he had given her. There were white, medium sized sweets in there. »Candies?«

Patrick smiled: »Not only candies; this would be an offense against the skills of old Doc. No, these sweets are special "Doc edition". He also serves ice cream, but you can´t transport ice-cream as easy as candies. He´s officially approved by license in making eatable things, of course. Try one. But pay respect to the filling. Real, earnest respect, ok?«

Teresa shook her head: »No thank you, that sounds not very reliable to me.«

»But it is. I tried to bring you a box of Doc´s ice to the CBI for you to try, but you were all gone. Now it´s in the fridge there and the others will eat it – so I thought of going back to Docs shop and take some sweets... here they are. Whatever, Doc has specialized himself to serve very, very strange mixtures of taste in his ice cream and bonbons. Everything you try at his place is extremely… um… "_urgh_" to be precise. In the least case you wonder yourself, in the worst case you… well, get really disgusted.« He smiled again. »But exactly this is what makes him famous, you never get those tastes somewhere else, and you _got_ to try it even if they taste like… "_urgh_", even if they make you cough for air or leave a taste like a dead dog´s tongue. And that´s it. I went there because I haven't seen him since years, and had some interesting new ice flavors there. They made me sick, really sick, but it was worth it.«

Lisbon was now also smiling: »And what kind of tastes were that?«

»Pepperoni-anchovy and Cheesecake, and one thing called blue sea breeze. Very salty and of such a screaming blue color, that it hurts your eyes. In addition to that I had green tea and lotus blossom, rice pudding, and lemon-mushroom. Sounds special, doesn´t it?«

»Um, yes, ah...« Teresa had to admit. »And those candies taste like the same?«

»Kind of. He has ten different flavors, each one as filling; but inside the same outer shell. If you mix them up you can hardly tell which is which. It´s a surprise. Revolting, at times, but sometimes they´re quite ok. Like life. Try it.«

Teresa put the candies back in his trolley and said: »Thank you for the explanation – and please do never ask me again if I want to try one of these.«

»I promise, if you don´t tell the others.«

Lisbon shook her head: »I won´t let you poison my team.«

He smiled. »I was not up to do that. But maybe some curious Agents in the CBI, who like it to taste the food of someone else will be really surprised in the meanwhile.«

She had to admit: »That would be fun to watch.« and had to suppress a yawn. »Oh, I think your tale really made me tired, like a fairy tale… Good night now.« Lisbon went back to the bedroom and closed the door.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Searching for evidence

The next morning was surprisingly relaxing. Jane had ordered the hotel service to bring the breakfast to the suite, so they sat at the terrace and tried to get the core information out of all the rumors and facts that they had heard the day before. It was very unusual for Lisbon to see Jane in a short-armed, light blue shirt, and darker blue, half legged Bermudas. At the first moment he seemed to her like a stranger, as if she´d never seen him before – he always wore his suits and vest, and yes… shoes.

»Come on.« he joked. »It´s not that bad, is it? You have to run with the pack, or they´ll get suspicious. Buy yourself a nice and easy summer dress… or I´ll do.«

Lisbon shook her head: »No thanks. But let´s get started; we had time to think about it all since yesterday. I want to sort it out now.«

They hoped that they were able to present the other team members a good theory in the evening. Maybe Cho and Van Pelt could come back then for a visit and ask the hotel management about the new theories, so check if they´d react in some strange manner.

»Let me first.« Lisbon said. »As I told you yesterday while we had dinner, there are some persistent rumors about illegal intruders. Recently there was no theft or burglar attempt, but one of the ladies said, that once a friend of hers had heard a story that a couple of things have disappeared on the beach. If there was an illegal intruder, who was up to a burglar, and attacked Caren de Palmer because she saw him, it would be very embarrassing for the hotel management to admit that their security system has failed. Maybe the intruder fled when he saw that he had hurt her gravely, or someone of the employees scared the trespasser off, ere he could try to rob or to rape her, and this staff member told the management about it. Therefore they insist so much on that it was an accident – they don't want to admit that they can´t keep their guests safe.«

»You think that Cho and Grace should ask them about that?« Jane asked.

Lisbon shook her head: »Not yet. We haven´t got the slightest proof. I will have a closer look at the hotel fence; maybe I can find a part where the wire netting was damaged, when someone climbed over. They have lots of climbing plants there at the inside of the fence, if they are broken this could be another hint. I´ll also look at the harbor where the hotel-boats anchor, maybe an intruder came in there. If you could help me searching for evidence at the small golf course, that would be very nice.«

»Ah…« Patrick said that moment. »A boat. What if this intruder came by boat and anchored at the Hot Springs Bay? This way one could avoid the fence. And I don´t think that the security guard walks all the way down the cliff to see, if there is a boat.«

She sighed: »But then we´ll never know.«

»Maybe we will.« He responded. »In the night I was watching a discovery channel movie about the Great Barrier Reef. They also discussed the damage that the tourist or private ships cause on the corals and the other sea-bottom structures when they drop their anchor there. These wounds in the corals heal slowly. I don´t think that one could tie a rope at the rocks in that bay so easy, the worse if it is dark. If you want to keep a boat on its place, you´d have to use the anchor. And this would leave a mark on the ground.«

»You think that there could be a damaged coral site or a fresh crack in the underground rocks? But I think the sea is deep there, you won´t see from the surface. But maybe you are right. I´ll try to climb down both rocks and take a look at the lower wall, whether there are spots where you could tie a rope.«

He agreed: »And it would fit the theory that I thought of, at least in some way.«

»Your theory?« Teresa asked.

Jane smiled: »Yes, my theory. I also believe in that intruder story, but another thing kept me thinking, it´s those "look at the water" words that the stranger said to Van Pelt. If this person meant, we should look at the water as a possibility for an intruder to get in the hotel area, this would make sense, wouldn't it?«

»It would.« Lisbon said. »If one comes with a boat he really might end up in the little rocky Hot Springs Bay – cause if one would try from the other side, he or she would have either to anchor in front of the rock that sheds the harbor area from the beach, or pass by the whole beach bay. And that is risky; first to be seen, second about the reef itself. In the dark it is very dangerous to have a boat out there – some of the reef´s upper ends are not deep down. But every speculation is useless until we´ve been at the sites and seen it with our own eyes. Let´s get started, the hotel´s fence is rather long.«

»Hm.« Jane took a sip of his tea. »Ok, but… there´s still something I do not entirely understand. There´s some point we did not think of… you know what I mean. I am sure that there is more to this than we know now, and this feeling keeps nagging me.«

Lisbon proposed: »Maybe you can sort your thoughts out while we work. I don´t want to lose any more time. I want to give the others something to work with, we´ve lost one day already.« She stood up and went back to the sleeping chamber to get dressed, after a check up in the bathroom she went directly to the northern part of the hotel area. The main entrance to the hotel was approximately in the middle of the landside fence, and in front of this part of the rear fence there was the car park and bus-turn around. The car parking lot was under video surveillance, and a barricade-bar closed the public pass-by street from the parking lot. The fence was also eight feet high here, and made of wire netting. A small path wound itself along the fence, it was not paved but made of sand and earth – Lisbon could not tell if it was a jogging course or only a trail for the gardeners.

She followed the undamaged fence until she reached another building, which was definitely not a place where the guests lived. It was way in the back, and if one would stay at the main road, you´d hardly see it between the garden plants there. It was the living place for those of the employees that did not come over to work from the nearby villages. The place was not as comfortable as the tourist´s houses, but seemed to be ok. She could not go in there, because a key would be needed. The fence melted into one side of the building and started at the other side again. There was another exit at the outer side of the staff quarters, so this could be one possibility where an intruder could sneak in without climbing.

She went on, passed by the tennis courts again. Here the fence was even higher to prevent that too many tennis balls could fly over it, and it was really unlikely that someone would climb a sixteen foot wire-netting-fence if there are other possibilities. The next hotel building she saw was that two floored one she already knew, they had guest-rooms there, and the terraces and balconies looked out to the back side. But the fence was still ok.

Exhausted she finally arrived at the point where the fence path turned round at the north-most edge of the hotel area. While she was looking at the fence and the climbing plants closely, a man approached to her.

»Excuse me?« he asked. He was clad in a gardener´s uniform and carried some garden tools with him in a basket. »You lost something, Ma´am, can I help searching?«

Lisbon smiled at him: »No, thank you, I only look at the climbing plants. I like it how dense they are in covering the fence, while their climbing roots seem to be so gentle that they don´t damage the wire. I thought of planting those in my garden.«

The gardener laughed: »Oh, Ma´am, I am awfully sorry, but I think this won´t work. They need our island climate, you know, they don't grow so well on Oahu island, and this is not so far north, and they don´t have them as a garden plant on Kauai. I don´t think that they grow on the continent. Sorry, Ma´am. But you could buy that passion flower over there. It is also nice, climbing, and the flowers look good.«

Teresa smiled back, and asked: »Thank you. Do you mind if I keep looking?«

»No, of course not.«

A moment later she requested: »Have you noticed any damaged places along the fence in the last days, maybe where someone tried to rip out one of those climbers?«

»No, Ma´am. Not along this side of the fence. But my colleague Sam said that some angry golfer, who missed his hit, damaged the fence plants at the southern side, when he tried to get his golf-ball back.« He sighed. »Sometimes people don´t care for the work of the staff. It will cost weeks to get the plants ok again.«

»I like your work.« Lisbon said. »The garden is wonderful.«

The gardener smiled widely and thanked her again, but then he moved on.

Teresa sighed and also continued her way along the fence. It ended at the steep end of the northern cliff, and a half circle of pointed iron bars that was fixed on the fence post and the rock down below hemmed intruders to get around the edge. She knelt down and looked over the cliff. She was on top of a rock overhang. About fifteen feet below her the wall of the cliff bent backwards and was out of sight. In total it must be about sixty, sixty-five feet to the sea surface. The water was black and looked very deep. She stood up again and tried to make out any possibility to get down there, but the first real chance was at the path that led down to the Hot Springs Bay. The northern, higher rock with its overhang where she had been a few minutes before did not get much flatter and easy to walk on at its bottom. She had to follow the pool-path and passed one of the pools. The path ended at the second pool on this side, and there was no way to go on. The rocky underground was very uneven and at times much too slippery. Whenever she thought that she had found a possibility to go on, this passage ended after a few feet. At last she had to turn around. From the point where she was now, she could see the other three pools at the opposite side, at the foot of the "Sundown Rock." This rock was in total more flat and surely easier to walk on.

She went back to the artificially built path, hurried on and was at the "Sundown Rock" about fifteen minutes later. Teresa was not mistaken. If one would like, it was possible to walk on outwards past the pools. It seemed to her that there was kind of a natural path that led out to the point where the rock finally fell below sea level. Of course there was a possibility to get on land unseen, especially if it was night.

While Lisbon went back to the suite, she called Van Pelt: »Are you busy?« she asked.

»We´re still on that guy who robbed Rigsby.« Grace answered. »Everything ok? You said you´d call only if something´s wrong. I was up to prepare you a good summary for tonight´s discussion. This is not ready now, I must admit.«

Lisbon smiled: »We´re doing fine, I only have some points to tell you now. Try to get all the others around you so that they can listen? Also Detective Miller please. We maybe need his expertise. I´ll call you as soon as I am in my suite, so that no one overhears us.«

When she finally arrived in her suite, where she found herself alone, she was surprised. It was already one in the afternoon; she had missed the lunch. There were some fruits and a half-eaten sandwich at the living-room table, and Teresa started to eat while she phoned again. »Ok. Turn on the speaker, Grace.« she ordered. »And then tell me first, what you found out about the man that robbed Rigsby. Jane said, he is dead?«

Van Pelt answered: »The coroner said that he died between nine and two, the night that Rigsby was attacked. Research gave us a only name for this person; Ryan Blue. A self-chosen name of course. He seemed to have great ambitions in Hawaii. He left back everything, to start again. But this was not a good start, surely not as he imagined it.«

Detective Miller explained: »He´s an ex-gang member. The only persons who know him are in a street gang in Honolulu. I called a colleague there, and he said that the gang is still on the streets, but Mister Blue disappeared from the records of Honolulu about two years ago. They think he fled from his old gang; it´s said that he owed them money. We never had him on record here on Hawaii, but a man who fits his description was accused about eight months ago on Maui – the locals say that he tried to break in a car. Then he disappeared again. There are always some minor thefts in our street, maybe he is guilty in some of them. All together we have a small, but complete track of the events that followed the attack.«

Cho took the lead: »He was driving without wearing any safety garment. Maybe he´d be still alive if he had a helmet, and witnesses at a parking lot next to the place where Rigsby was attacked heard a quad going away. We assume that this man tried to get into some secret lair outside of town. He lost the control over his quad out of self-overestimation or too high velocity. The vehicle crashed into the bridge post of a small ravine and toppled over. At day two civilians found him.«

Lisbon said: »Hm. And Rigsby´s money was with him. That closes the case, does it? Rigsby was attacked because he was alone and at the wrong place at the wrong time.« The same minute she had a strange feeling. Was it _really_ closed? Something was not even in this story. »Ok.« she tried to collect her thoughts. »Listen. Jane and I think that some illegal intruder tried to sneak in this hotel area, maybe by boat.« And again a strange feeling kept her back from the next thing she was up to say, instead of that she changed her words: »If this intruder came in from the _water_, it would be possible that Caren de Palmer met this trespasser and this person knocked her down.« She laid special stress on the word _water_, and hoped that Grace would get the hint. »It is possible that this intruder fled after the attack, but maybe someone of the hotel staff scared him off. If this is so, the management maybe knows more than they told you before. Please come over here – Van Pelt and Cho, and ask them again. Inquire them especially about illegal intruders, now or in the years before, and look at their behavior. Do this today, it is still enough time. You can come here, ask them and return to Hilo. We´ll call one another later today, maybe six is too early.« She cleared her throat. »Um, I have another question, but…« how could she do this without being totally embarrassed – but who cared? »Well yes, let´s say, it´s a girl-question. Would you mind much, Van Pelt, if you´d take the phone with you to a "very alone" place?«

»Yes?« Grace replied. Lisbon never has _girl-questions_. Rigsby and Cho looked at her the same puzzled way, but Detective Miller smiled – he understood what Lisbon meant; she needed a personal talk to a woman she knows, probably about this Jane or whatever.

Van Pelt tried to talk some chit-chat-nonsense while she left the office building, but as soon she was alone, she changed her theme completely: »Ok, boss, I am out and alone.«

»Good. Never mind my last words, I had to get you out there. I think you recognized my attempt to remind you of the "water" thing, that this strange person said to you?«

»Yes. Look at the water. Therefore you think that the intruder might have come or fled by boat, any other floating device, or as a diver. That´s a nice thought and we´ll check it out with the hotel managers. But I´ve been thinking of something else… compared with your theory it seems not right, but nevertheless…«

Lisbon said: »Tell me. Every theory is welcome.«

Grace sighed: »Well. The first idea that came to me was about the water _itself_, I mean the water quality. If one "looks" at the water you could refer to the testing results. I remember from a TV show that every hotel has to test the water along their beaches as well as in their pools, also the tab water, on its quality for health. But… why should this have to do with our current investigation? Your theory sounds much better.«

»Hm.« Lisbon answered. »But yours is also a good thought, although I really see no link to Caren de Palmer´s accident. I´ll talk to Jane about that. If you have time tomorrow, look into the hotel´s references, maybe you can find something about the water quality. But today we need you here, to check that first suspicion. Tell Rigsby and Detective Miller that they should look at the past of the hotel, if there are any records. Maybe someone was accused to trespass the hotel grounds illegally.«

»Ok. And what about the "look at the water" theory? Should we tell Miller and the other locals about it?«

Teresa answered: »We should respect the wish of your contact, at least for a while. If we find out that this person is more involved in that case than we think, we might have to inform them. But bye now, I have to look at the other side of the hotel area now.«

»Bye.«

:-:

Lisbon looked around in her nice suite. It was quiet and cool here; the walk along the fence, and especially the last time that she had spent in the full sunshine on the rocks had been exhausting. But now there was the whole southern part of the hotel area left, and the golf course had a really long outer fence. The moment she was up to leave the suite again, she ran into another person. To her surprise it was Jane, who had a plastic bag with him.

»Oh, you are here.« he said. »That´s good. I´ve got something for you.«

He opened the bag and let her look inside. There was a pair of flippers, and a snorkeling-mask inside, also a single-use-waterproof camera.

»You want to go diving?« Lisbon asked.

»No, you want.« he answered. »I was at the southern side of the hotel area for a look-a-round. The hotel´s harbor is guarded constantly, and there is a small lighthouse at the outer rim of the rock, that separates the beach bay from the harbor. It sends it´s light out to prevent collisions with the reef or the rock. We can look at it as soon it is dark; the harbor bay is too bright at night. And no one can pass the reef so easy, especially not by boat. A surfboard or a diver could find a passage, but not in the night, and boats and other bigger floating devices are strictly forbidden in the bay behind the reef. There must be something in the Hot Springs Bay – or nowhere.«

Lisbon had no chance to protest, therefore she sighed: »Ok, give that to me, I´ll try to find any fresh anchor mark at the sea bottom. Maybe I can call Cho again ere they arrive here. Then they have a real proof behind their questions.«

:-:

To their surprise, clouds doomed at the island when they were ready to go to the beach, but it was still sunny at the western part of the island. And again it seemed to Lisbon as if he was a complete stranger, with his totally vacation-like outfit and the sandals.

She wore her bikini and the big cloth that she had wrapped around her like a beach dress, in her hands were flippers, diving mask and the snorkel. »I still can´t believe this.«

Jane replied: »I am sure that the water is wonderful. But we´d better hurry up if we want to do this today, I am afraid that the weather forecast was right. They said a thunderstorm or at least heavy rain will come this afternoon.«

She smiled: »We´ll be ready ere the rain starts.«

At the beach they took an umbrella and two beach-beds at the northern end of the bay, close to the "Sundown-Rock". Together they went to the water line a couple of minutes later, and looked at the foot of the big lava flow that stretched itself in the ocean. Jane pointed along the rocky shore: »I´ll follow you at the land, if it is possible.«

»You could walk all around this first flow of rocks, if you like, it never gets too steep. I was out there not long ago. But you could also wait here; I get this done and be back soon. Give me the camera, please.« she stretched out her hand and he gave her the small, waterproof single use camera. It was an old model without flash, but surely useful here.

Then she went in the water. It was wonderful! For a moment she could not believe that this was really work; and that she was lying to herself that there was something to investigate; only that she could stay a little bit longer, but then she concentrated on swimming. It was a smooth way through the sheltered bay to the reef; the sand was white and the water calm. Only from time to time a blackish rock broke through the white coral sand sea bottom. It was not deep, maybe nine or eleven foot. From time to time she looked up, and saw that Jane was following her at the rock, but he was much slower than she was.

At last the reef shimmered through the water in front of her, it was not as deep down as the ground in the bay, and she had to look hard for a way through. Some sharp coral tips lay only one or one and a half foot below the water line, that was too less space to swim over.

It was a beautiful sight, and although she had a job to do, she took her time to watch the hundreds of colorful fish and the fine structure of the corals, the small crabs and a little seahorse, that came closer to look at her. At last she found a passage over the reef and tried not to touch the sensitive corals. She never wanted to damage them by an uncontrolled move of her flippers either, therefore she hardly pushed forward. Teresa was not very fast and took three or four pictures of the amazing sea life while she passed the reef.

When she reached the outer rim the sight was different, and a little bit uneasy. The reef fell down in two or three smooth steps to the eternal blue of the ocean, and she could look into the never-ending open sea. Rays of sunlight lost themselves in the water, she was all alone. For one moment she looked after Jane, and saw that he was at the outmost point of the "Sundown Rock" now. Lisbon changed the direction to get to him. She had to swim around that rocky corner to get in the next, the Hot Springs Bay.

The currency was much stronger out here, and she tried to keep parallel to the reef and so close to it that she had the lower step of the corals constantly beneath her. It was some kind of safety to have the ground in a good visible distance.

Soon she was at the end of the bay, but a little bit short of breath. It had been hard work to go against the currency. For a second time she looked over water and waved to Jane, who waved back, and pointed to the other side of the rocky ridge that went into the sea in a smooth line. She nodded, but then he stood upright and showed her something in the sky. She looked after his hand and saw that the clouds were drifting from the heights of the island to the west. But they were moving slowly and she had enough time.

Teresa swam on. A little bit in front of her the vivid colors of the reef began to melt into the black volcanic rock that reached a lot further out in the sea. While she had been swimming against the current, she did not really recognize it, but now it was obvious: Some coral species were not visible here, especially the very fine branched ones. The reef was still colorful and happy fish were circling round, but as nearer as she came to the volcanic rock more and more parts of the corals were dead, and had started to lose their color. Maybe this was because of the rougher sea that hit the rocks, or a recent storm had caused damage. She swam on, and left the beach bay area. At once the volcanic rock built the underground.

If she thought, that the first look in the open ocean had left her with a little bit of an uneasy feeling, this now was _really_ kind of unpleasant. She had no white coral sand or mixed colored coral stocks beneath her any more. There was only the black rock that seemed to swallow all the light, no matter how deep it was. The black stone field floated into the ocean just the way as you´d expect from lava, in general it was a smooth, steady line of decent, some broken and cracked structures were at the top, but the general impression was black velvet, that ate all the light. And it was getting worse. _Why did I agree in this_? The other side of the lava flow broke down immediately to a lightless ravine on the sea ground. The water was somewhat dizzy there, the more if she looked landside and down. This must be the mixture of hotter and cooler water currents. For an instant she came up and wondered how close she was to Jane – she could not explain it; but maybe the rock fell down faster than she thought. Whatever.

Lisbon took off mask and snorkel for a moment and said to him: »You can´t imagine how this place looks like under water. You owe me one.« She did not wait for his answer, put the mask back on, took a few deep breaths and started a first dive.

She had to take closer looks at the sea bottom to find anchor markings, and to make photos of them. The light seemed to melt away like ice cream in the fire; she took her pictures – various ones, but all together she had the impression, that they were not good.

Teresa went down a little more in her next dive and searched for a hold on the rocks to concentrate on a short look-around, but the ground was still not much clearer. The ravine was black and lightless. She could feel that the temperature of the water was higher down here, went up once and dived again, with more effort. Soon she was so deep that she could feel the pressure in her ears, and tried a pressure balance. Again she grabbed one rocky place with her hands, and pulled herself down a little bit more. This ravine was ghastly. The ground seemed to move – here and there, with every wave, there and back, back and there, a black shadowy mass... _Why by all means does the ground move!_ _A rocky underground is not allowed to move!_ Some silver blinking things were with this mass, gliding to and fro, disappearing, and coming up again. One of these silver things was close to her, not to deep down, caught in a crevice. She stretched out her arm and touched it… a fish? The little fish must be dead for a longer time, and felt slimy and disgusting. She took a photo and let go of the rock, slowly she drifted to the surface.

»Many dead fish!« she cried to Jane. »But still no sign of an anchor place. I´ll try again. Any special wishes, where I should dive to? You seen something?«

The man yelled: »I´m here at a place where a rope has been fixed recently, I still can see some blue fibers. They are not much bleached and not very good attached to the rock – some storm or heavy rain might wash them away. They can´t be here for long.«

»Ok, I see.« Lisbon answered, and tried to check out the area below the place he had shown her. _Yes, maybe there was something_. She took pictures of some parallel scratches at the ravine wall, that ended in a broken little crevice, came up and said: »Hey, you are at a hot spot there, can you try to look at the rocks along the surface, maybe you see some traces of ship color or something. I´ll try it a little bit over there now.«

After another deep breath she dived again, more in the middle of the ravine, and pushed her down with the flippers. Surprisingly fast she was only a few feet above the sea ground – or what she had thought at the first sight that it was the sea ground. It was in fact _not_ the rocky ground. There was a mass of debris in the ravine, that swallowed all the light, maybe the real ground was close by, maybe not. She could see another handful of dead fish, went on and found some bleached crabs and a dead, bloated squid, some other fish, and…

Then the light was nearly completely gone. Within the part of a second, the sea color changed from bright blue to a grisly grey. She had to dive deeper to have enough light for the photos; therefore she moved her flippers with a lot of power.

The next moment something touched her from behind. Then there was so much that happened this instant. She nearly inhaled a mouthful of water in shock, but hit the thing that was next to her in the water with her left forearm - the first strike of self defense she could think of. Apparently this move it was not useful here, the thing was… dead, yes, it was dead, it was a dead shark, and did not really mean to harm her, but now her arm had cracked the rotting skin and was stuck in the lifeless creature. The dead fish lost all the decay-gas that had built up in the body through the rip in the skin. There were meat and intestine scraps everywhere and the sudden weight of the shark kept dragging her down. The eyes, that where covered with a misty, dead vagueness, stared back in silence, as she shook the whole body of the shark to get her arm free. There was salt water burning in her throat, her lungs felt as if they would explode, _no, this is only panic, I will be back at the surface in a moment_. It seemed to her that it cost her much time to get rid of the shark, but then it was gone and started to sink slowly as a feather in the wind down to the ground, she hurried upwards, coughed under water, and was finally up.

She felt disoriented and did not know which way to go… it was as if she could only get half the air she needed into her lungs; that affected her more than she would admit.

»Lisbon! Teresa Lisbon, here!« a voice called. »Teresa!« she could hardly hear it, her ears were full of water, but it was somewhat of a direction.

She kept on coughing and slowly it was getting better. The saltwater kept burning in her throat, but she could breathe. Finally she arrived at the rocky shore. Patrick, who knelt at the rock, took her left hand to hold her close by. »Hey, you ok? What happened?«

»I am ok, Jane, just scared my breath off because…« she coughed. »A dead shark.« She searched for a place to get a grip with her other hand at the rocks in front of her, but this was impossible. They were stingy and sharp-edged, so she instead of holding on, she tried to keep a good distance to them.

Jane recognized her attempt, and let go of her hand. »A dead shark?«

Lisbon was now swimming on her own again: »Yes, there are a lot of rotting fish down there, in that warm-water ravine. Must be a dead spot for current, out of some cause.« She coughed again. »If an anchor mark is in that place, we´ll never find it.« she closed her eyes for a moment, salt water made them burn. When she looked back at him, she noticed that his right hand was blood-stained. »Jane, you´re bleeding.«

»I´m not.« he protested. »But you are.«

Surprised she looked at her own left hand and saw at once that she had a cut at the side of her palm, from the small finger to the wrist. It was apparently not deep but bleeding like mad in the saltwater. »Oh, really.« she said, not much upset. »I´d better get out of the water, ere the late shark´s living relatives come for a visit, I think.« she joked.

»Yes you should.« Patrick answered. »Second to that, the clouds are getting thicker. There might not be enough light left for any new photos. This thing´s got no flashlight.«

Lisbon agreed: »I fear so too. If needed I´ll try again tomorrow, with a new device. Here, take the camera, and take it to the express lab in the main house. If we have the luck, there is something important to see and we can give them to Cho and Van Pelt when they arrive.« She threw the waterproof camera in his direction, and explained: »I´ll head back to the beach in the meantime. See you there, ok?« She put back on the diving mask and the snorkel, and pushed her forward with the flippers.

Again a cloud covered the sun and it went dark, but she never looked back to the grayish sea above the black ground. The current was somewhat more intense now, but it kept dragging her into the right direction, so it was welcome for a time. It was a real relief for her when she could see the corals and sandy places beneath her again, the colorful little fish and the other sea animals. Teresa never found back to the passage she used to cross the reef for the first time, but there was another one, close by. The water was of a crystal blue again when she was in the protected little bay in front of the beach. Slowly the cut on her hand started to burn, but she could not help it as long as she was in the water.

Some other snorkelers waved at her friendly, when she passed by, but she did not stop. A few other people were at the beach and a young woman, Becky, whom she knew from the wellness area, came closer, when she finally went out of the water, her flippers in the hands and feeling a little bit nausea, because she had been in the water so long.

»Hi, Teresa.« Becky said. »Patrick is not with you again? I can´t see him anywhere.«

»Eh, what?« Lisbon had definitely no intention to have a talk now, and she must admit that she hadn´t been listening to the other woman´s words.

Becky´s voice was low, insinuative: »He leaves you alone too much, does he? You never do something together, today morning he was at the golf course alone, and when my darling and I went to the boats to go for a fishing trip he was in the harbor, also alone. And you weren´t at the lunch, and now I see you snorkeling alone. It is much more fun if you do this together with your loved one, am I right, darling?« She waved at someone.

A young man waved back at her with a beach-ball racket in his hand. »You´re right, sweetie.« but then he saw that dark drops were dripping off the tips of Lisbon´s flippers. »By all means, is this…?« he asked, and cried: »Your hand is covered in blood, Mrs. Jane!«

Teresa felt not really addressed with this surname; therefore she did not react at once.

Becky started to scream: »Oh my, you are hurt, Teresa, oh dear, did you cut yourself on the reef! We need a doctor here, darling, go get us a doctor! Fast! This is serious.« The young woman exaggerated hugely. »Come, Teresa, sit down, you must not be standing, do you need support? You can lean on my shoulder while walking, if you need.«

Lisbon could not tell how much she hated this pathetic behavior, but she sat down on her beach bed, while the over-worried Becky run to the beach bar to get a bottle of clear water and some napkins. _Ok_, the water was good, but the constant wailing of Becky started to get nerve racking. »Oh, how did this happen? And you all alone out there, no help, no one to protect you, you had to cope with the shock all alone, oh this must hurt so much…«

In the meantime Jane had arrived at the small "one-hour-photo-lab" that was with the shops in the main house of the hotel. The shop´s owner smiled at him and said: »Oh, the old single-use camera I sold you today. Of course I can develop the pictures for you, but it will last approximately three hours, and will be a little bit more expensive. I am sorry. These pictures are not digital. I have to develop the film with my old device, and I must reactivate it first.«

»It´s ok, I´ll come back to get them later. Three hours, you said?« Jane answered. When he went out of the shop, he organized some other thing at the reception. That took a while, but it was ok in the end. »Thank you so much Miss Lahila.« he said to the pretty woman at the counter. »I know that it was difficult to get this place for us.« He reached over the desk to take her hand, when a young man in beach wear came running into the building.

»I need the hotel-doctor, a woman had an accident at the beach.« he said to the receptionist. At once Miss Lahila took the phone and dialed a number. While they were waiting for the doctor, the young man kept on talking: »She cut herself on the reef while she was snorkeling; maybe a wave drove her into the corals, or something. My wife is with her to keep her calm, but how long does the doctor need to come?«

Miss Lahila answered: »He will be here in a minute.«

Now the young man looked at Jane: »Oh, it´s you?« he said, surprised.

»Yes, me?« Patrick replied, with an untroubled voice.

The young guy informed him: »It is _your_ wife that´s been hurt, and where are you? Here in the lobby, flirting with the receptionist. That's a man, really! Pah!«

Now Jane was curious: »I did not flirt… what you say? My wife? Teresa needs a doctor?« He left her a short time ago and everything was ok by then. _Strange_.

»Of course _your_ wife. Becky knows her from the wellness-spa, there is no mistake.«

Now the doctor was here with his bag. He was a black man, clad in a white doctor´s outfit. He demanded: »Please lead the way. We take my e-buggy.«

The three of them hurried back to the beach with a special electric car that belonged to the doctor, in case if the hurt person needed transport. For a second Patrick´s astonishment changed to anxiety, but when he saw the expression on Lisbon´s face he was so close to laugh, that he had difficulties to hold back his first chuckle. With clenched teeth and a constant twitch at the corners of his mouth he watched the scene.

Lisbon hated it, and had to lie nevertheless – smile, just keep smiling and be thankful for the overwhelming helpfulness of Becky. Meanwhile all others at the beach were also looking, but when the doctor started his work, all went away except of Becky. The "new best friend" of Teresa was still close by her side, constantly trying to be helpful.

»It´s not that bad.« the doctor reassured the patient. »I can fix that right here. It´s only a surface wound and won´t need stitch up. In fact, some fixing plaster and a small bandage will do. Keep it dry until tomorrow and then you can take it off.«

_I know that it is not bad_, Lisbon thought and forced herself to another thankful smile. That moment she saw Jane who was right behind the doctor. One look at his face was enough; her composure began to crumble. She tried to look away from him again, but this was more difficult than one would believe – so she gave it up. _Don't make me laugh_.

And suddenly Becky saw him too, and threw a sharp and punishing look at him: »_Now_ you are here!« she bellowed and her voice was like acid. »Much too late! How careful!«

_What is with her?_ Jane tried to ask Lisbon only by visual contact.

_You don´t want to know, believe me._ She answered. _But we´ve got to do something_.

_Something?_ He asked back. _What something? THAT something? Explain please?_

_Later, Jane. _

It was strange how good they could interpret their expression, and it was that fact that nearly caused them to burst into giggles of amusement again.

»I am ready.« the doctor said. »It will be ok. If you have any more problems, call me.«

»Thank you.« Lisbon answered. »I think I´ll have a short rest in my suite now.« She stood up, flung herself in Jane´s arms, and whispered hard words: »Do it… now.«

They were both so very close to laugh their whole plan to ruins that they could hardly bear it. And it was not getting better, not a bit. Teresa was trembling all over in her attempt to keep silent, and her teeth were chattering because of the strain. She had to clench her jaws to be sure that she would not laugh unwillingly, when he bent down to kiss her. In the last split of second she dived away and slapped him at the right cheek. »This does not help you now!« she cried. _Don't laugh, don't laugh, don't laugh, don't laugh_…

He was utterly surprised; maybe he never expected that it would end that way. »You hit me…« he mouthed, but then his old self, the con-man, took over and therefore he had the strength to say in a cool, caring voice: »I´m so sorry baby. I´ll bring you to the suite, yes? Come. Come with me.« he turned to the others: »Thank you all for your help. I feel so guilty I can´t tell. I think we have to talk now.«

Becky glared after them, but then her husband dragged her away to resume their beach ball play: »Let them discuss it, darling, we play on, ok? You were wonderful to her.«

:-:

As soon as they were out of sight they started a short run, but could not hold back their laughs anymore. It was so funny that they were still gasping for air because of their giggles, when they arrived at their suite, and the explanation that Lisbon gave was also full of laughs; and therefore hardly to understand, but one thing was clear, they had scraped through this by a hairs breadth and could carry on with the investigation.

»What about the photos?« Teresa asked.

Jane answered: »I get them in three hours. I know it´s too late to give them to Cho and Van Pelt then, but maybe they don´t need them. By the way, I organized one of those Hot Spring pools for tonight. I want to check something. I hope that´s all right with your hand?«

»Of course it is. I keep it dry and that´s it. But what… oh, I see. You want to check out how far you are able to see from there, when its dark.«

»That´s it. If we go there only for a look at the night, it might be suspicious.« he smiled. »I think after that _shocking_ scenery out there you should go to your friends in the wellness area and tell them the truth – I mean, about us. That we… kind of try to "save" our marriage here, or something. I like stories… they distract the people round you.«

Teresa sighed: »Do you really think this is inevitable?«

»No – it is not really necessary. But it´s fun.«

»Very funny.« Lisbon growled. »Then you go and talk to them.«

He shook his head: »Surely not… They might want to hear your side of the story, but not mine. _You_ are the one in our relationship, that suffers because of my ignorance.«

»Oh please be quiet…« She could not speak on, but laughed.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Realgar

The hotel manager was not as friendly as before, he was cautious and closed. The fact that Caren de Palmer could maybe have been the victim of an attack on his hotel grounds seemed to worry him, but in a way that Cho and Van Pelt did not understand – or like. It was as if one needs to take some bitter medicine; it tastes awful, but you know that it will help. There _was_ something to that intruder-theory, but it did not fit the expectations of the CBI Agents. The manager – a bald man with a little bit of an overweight problem and wearing an expensive Italian suit, tried constantly to deny that the security system of the hotel had been outrun by anyone, but his undertone indicated something totally different.

It was, as if he was talking about one thing, but constantly trying to convince the Agents, that they were right with their intruder theory; but without confirming it officially. After half an hour in separate talk with him, the other higher staff members joined the questioning and it kept getting worse – one of them nearly _proved_ the hunch that one stranger had tried to creep in to the hotel´s area by boat. He mentioned that the pool boy called him for advice, because there were new scratches of boat color at the rocks; and that the boy did not know how to remove them. This was not an open confession, but it was evidence that a non-hotel boat had been there in the Hot Springs Bay not long ago.

The questioning of the pool boy did not bring any new results; he only said that they removed the color pieces with hammer and chisel, because they did not go away otherwise. But there was no real, solid proof. No one of the hotel staff had actually seen a stranger, and no guest had reported anything suspicious to the security.

»It sounded to me as if they were, deep inside, _glad_, that we think an illegal trespasser attacked her.« Cho said to Van Pelt, when they were back in the car. They had the whole return drive to Hilo in front of them and could discuss the newest events.

Grace answered: »But why should they be glad if any trespasser attacked the young woman? I mean, which hotel manager should be happy that some stranger can creep into the private area and knock a guest down?«

»A hotel manager who does not want to admit, that one of his _staff_ is the guilty one?« Cho asked. »That's only a theory, but which would you prefer? A stranger, who comes illegally without the knowledge or allowance of the hotel management into the area, or an employee that attacks a guest – for whatever cause.«

Van Pelt answered: »I would prefer the stranger.« She fell silent. »But the trespasser-theory would fit into the puzzle that we have to solve much better, than an employee who had his turn on Miss de Palmer. And if this person came by boat as everything indicates, the words "look at the water" could also fit. We have something like a complete picture before us, if we think about it.« She shook her head. »I don´t like it, though.«

Kimball agreed: »I don´t like it too. It´s too easy, although it was difficult to solve. You know what I mean? An unidentified stranger knocks Caren down, is maybe shocked or disturbed in his doing and flees with his boat ere someone comes and sees him. Evan de Palmer finds his wife and everything looks like an accident. This returns us to the beginning, the difficulty to find out that she _had_ been attacked. But by whom? What if it really was an employee that tried to rape her, because he was extraordinary affected by her? Maybe he lost his guts or was scared off before he could fulfill his desire?«

»We tell the boss and Jane.« Grace decided. »And I still don´t like that _water-theory_. Why should anyone tell me those strange words, and beg me to keep it absolutely secret from the locals? What does the _water_ itself have to do with that case?«

Cho proposed: »Call Rigsby and ask him to look at the examiner´s or the lab´s protocol of the hotel, maybe… there is something wrong with the water testing; if everything is ok we can stop worrying about that.«

Grace decided: »I´ll do that on my own, Rigsby will be busy to check the records of the hotel employees, maybe we´ll have to help him as soon as we´re back, and the more you think about it, the less it seems important if the water is ok or not. I think the more interesting fact is, whether someone of the hotel staff has got a skeleton in the cupboard.«

Cho grunted: »Hm. I´ve got another theory. What if the hotel drops it´s environmentally critical waste, like disinfectant or cleanser, or maybe old kitchen oil directly into the sea, instead of taking it to a special waste site, to save money? What if Caren de Palmer had seen one of the staff dumping the waste, and was therefore attacked?«

Grace wrinkled her brow: »Could be, but would _any_ hotel poison its own coast, only to save money? This would of course make difference to the water testing, some marine life creatures react very sensible to waste water. We´d see when we look at the records.«

They fell silent for a while, then Van Pelt, who was not driving, called Rigsby and Miller, and asked them how far they were with the records of the hotel employees.

It was Miller who answered the call: »Hey there. Anything new? We´ve got not so much over here. The records of all employees seem to be clean. Of course they had to bring a character reference to their interview with the hotel manager. Some have minor police records, but nothing really remarkable. The worst things are some tickets for high speed, and one drug abuse exemplary fine, but this happened long ago.«

Rigsby took the lead: »I´ve looked at all people who have been fired recently and might have some kind of grudge against the hotel. I also checked those which gave in their notice from free will, but there are not much; most of them working in other hotels now. I´ve got only three persons that have some clinch with the hotel management. One says that they still owe him twenty dollars of tip money. The second says that she had been sexually attacked by a guest and no one wanted to believe her. The third one has been fired because the management said that he tried to sneak into places that were out of his bounds. Maybe we should ask those three tomorrow. Two still live in Hawaii, the third one, the room-cleaning woman, moved to Kauai, but I can phone her.«

Miller explained: »That's what we thought of: Maybe one of the disappointed employees tries to get rumors for the hotel. If a person had been working there once, he or she of course knows how to get in and out unseen. Maybe that someone is out for revenge.«

Cho replied: »But to sneak in and attack a guest so that this woman nearly dies? Does this not seem to be a little far out there, for one that only seeks revenge for a kick-out?«

Detective Miller sighed: »Yes of course, but we have no other track. When you come back here we´ll have a short meeting, ok, but then I insist that you all have a rest for today. I don´t think it´s good to be overworked; maybe we miss one detail if we are too tired to keep everything in mind. I know it´s difficult to find peace and relax when the case is getting hot again, but we are no help for no one if we mess up because of self-overestimation.«

»Hm.« Grace answered. »Okay, I am fine with that. I feel really a bit exhausted and we still have a long drive. See you later.«

»See ya.« Rigsby said, then they disconnected the line.

:-:

»Oh, this is wonderful.« Teresa never thought that these little pools could be _that_ fascinating. She had been running round here for two days now and seen every pool, once she already had touched the water. And she had been swimming in the bay, but she never expected it to be so nice. No wonder that the guests kept fighting for a place here. The sitting place was so deep under water that one had only the neck and head out of the water, and it was possible to lean back on the smooth rim of the pool, to relax completely. If you were really up to it, this place could be so romantic that even stones would fall in love.

Jane had booked the pool exactly at sundown time, that time when Caren had passed by here too. Before they came here, he had got the photos back, and looked at them fast, while they were walking; but now they were in Lisbon´s little beach bag that was next to the entrance of the pool. When they arrived here, the sun was still in the air, but within their one hour she would be completely gone. They had a fascinating view out to the open sea, and for the moment it seemed to be like a black-blue silk cloth, that moved slowly in the evening light, sparkled from time to time with reddish diamonds.

While Lisbon was already in the hot water, Jane stood next to the control pad. He had the rental-key with him of course, and had set the lock to free – now he was playing with the buttons. »Make it hot, make it cool, up and down… « he whispered to himself. »Hey Lisbon, any changes?« he wanted to know louder.

»Not if you turn cooler. I only recognize it, if more warm water floats in through the opening in the bottom. But I think the pool would cool down if you close it completely. Every wave brings sea-temperature water in.« She stretched herself. »Turn it a little bit hotter and then stop playing round, it is almost time. See that rock out there?«

»I see it. It's the point where I found those rope fibers.«

Teresa agreed: »Yup. Now I want to know how long I can still see it from here.«

While a few seconds passed in silence, Patrick also went to the pool and sat down at the upper rim, to put his feet in the water. »Oh, they are right. This _is_ relaxing.« he said.

This moment Lisbon smelled something strange, and started to sniff in the air.

»Not guilty.« said Jane.

»Never said that, but that smell has changed. Something wrong with the controls?«

»No, I just opened the valve completely, to heat the pool. I´ll close it again in a few minutes. But you are right. I smell it too now. That´s not only sulphur, isn´t it?« He tried to describe the sort of smell, but the strange note in the air was gone, the only remaining was the slight sulphurous-stench that did not disturb, but was noticeable. Then there was again a faint, distant second smell component that mixed itself to the sulphur, and was gone soon.

Jane still was deep in thoughts of what it could have been, when Lisbon suddenly said: »Now I know. _Garlic_. That´s the smell, like intense garlic.«

_And there it was, like a stroke of lightning. _

»Ha!« Jane exclaimed and jumped to his feet outside the pool. »I think I got it, come with me … I need to have another look at the photos in better light.«

»Can´t you do this alone? Leave me here.« she protested.

He replied, with an earnest voice: »For nothing in the world I would leave you here, Lisbon, never.« he closed the outlets of the pool completely, took the key and waved: »Come, come, come, hurry, this will really interest you.«

Teresa sighed deeply. The sun had started to sink and it would have been a very nice sunset, no cloud was in the sky anymore and it could have been really a wonderful hour… _whatever_. She was here for work, and if Jane wanted to work, it had to be done. She wrapped the big bath towel round her and followed Patrick who was a good distance ahead.

As soon as they reached the suite, Jane sat down at the desk in the living room and took the lamp as near as possible, to enlighten the photographs. »Hm.« he said and grouped the photos into some kind of scheme: Living fish and corals, dead fish, stones, evidence for a boat anchor, and "nothing like that". While he did so, Teresa changed from her beach wear to some casual clothes, then she looked over his shoulder.

»Ah, the photos again.« she said. »I cannot remember that I took that much. To me it seemed that I only made five, or six. But I don´t remember, really.«

»Look here.« Jane pointed to a photo that showed the wall of the undersea-ravine, only a few inches up from the debris layer with the dead fish. »Look at the stones, at the wall. What do you see here? Not only black ones, or? There are those dark reddish, crystals… only a bit above that debris. Luckily enough that the sun was shining, otherwise you wouldn´t recognize them. They are very small and sit in the little crevices. They´re like those, here, I think.« He stood up and went to his trolley. When he returned, he had a small plastic bag with a few red crystals inside with him. They were not bigger than the head of a pin, but visible. »At first I thought that they were glass or hard plastic, maybe from the cracked cat eye of a boat, so I collected a handful of them for the others to analyze, but if you look at the photos you see that they´re undersea too, and even more of them.«

»Yes I see. What are they?« she took in a sharp breath. »_Rubies_? They look like rubies. You think that someone found out that there are rubies in the rocks and they are trying to get those? You think that the boat was maybe there because of that undersea mineral deposit? What a… _wow_. They are not big, but there are a lot of them, at least in the rocks under the sea, as it seems. The photo is not really good. But this is a motive.«

Jane smiled: »Good thought, but wrong, I fear. Look at this. It´s like a process.« He showed her three photos. »The reef is vivid and full of life in these pictures, but as soon as you approach the volcanic rock some of the corals are dead, or only living on very low level.« Now he showed her the picture that she had made at the side of the bay. »And…There are no corals, not even the most resistant ones, at the volcanic rock. The ravine that is between the rocks, is so much filled with dead marine life remains, that you can´t tell. Even sharks, who seek for carrion, die there… Then there are those red minerals, and… not to forget the strange smell that we could recognize for a moment, when I opened the valves to the topmost. You will agree when I say that some other kind of gas mixed up with the sulphur, that´s been already there, would you?«

»Yes, I would, and it was a garlic smell, faint and gone in a second, but it was there. Do you want to say that some _toxic_ gas or substance leaks out of the hot spring?« She smiled grimly. »"_Look at the water_". Now that makes sense.«

Jane also nodded: »Yup. That substance does not necessarily have been there since years. Volcanoes are very variable, one change in an sub-terrestrial magmatic flow and complete new chemicals can leak into a long established system. I don´t accuse anyone, not the hotel and not the constructors of that pipe system that connects the pools directly with the hot spring. Maybe at the construction time everything was fine. But it is _not_ ok now; you can see it especially on the effects at the sensitive marine life. And I have one main suspect, if I count everything together: _Realgar_.«

Teresa sat down and asked: »Realgar? I´ve heard that once, in my chemistry or art classes in High School, but… well. Could you please revoke my memory?«

Jane re-checked his own remembrance, then he answered: »Oh, chemistry is not one of my special fields, but… hm. Realgar is also known as "ruby of arsenic". The name comes from the Arabian word _rahj-al-gār_, which means powder-of-the-mine. The mineral is an arsenic sulfide... and melts at about three hundred twenty or something degrees centigrade. It releases fumes of arsenic and sulfur if it melts… it is fatal to all water life; no care if marine or sweet water. The arsenic gas that develops at the melting process is very toxic, also the mineral itself is classified as toxic. It was used as rat poison and is still a main source for the word´s arsenic. Once it was a color pigment in paintings, maybe you therefore know it out of your art classes. Realgar occurs in hydrothermal veins, as a volcanic sublimation, or in hot springs deposits. Usually it is known in reasonable amounts in the US only in Utah, Nevada and the Yellowstone National Park. But we have the same situation here… volcanic activity, hot springs… and those red crystals. If they´d analyze them they´ll find Realgar.«

»Toxic rubies.« Lisbon was impressed. »Who could possibly think of that.« she took a deep breath, then she continued: »If that´s it… maybe the hotel managers tried to conceal the existence of that poison in their hot springs bath. Maybe Caren de Palmer also noticed the smell, or she saw one of those Realgar crystals at the shore, like you… and one staff member who knows what this could mean, knocked her down. Jane, this is really incredible! Who thought that this story would turn into this way? I have to call the others; I need the last water test of this area. The change in the water´s chemistry must have been noticed.«

»Yes, it must have been noticed, but I doubt that there are records to prove it. They seem to be _very_ sure, that their secret is kept secret, they won´t risk that there is some paper or computer file that one could discover. I don´t think that we´ll find something.« He stood up and went to the couch, where he lay down.

Lisbon answered: »You think they bribed someone to make the water tests look nice? Anyway, we must try.« She took out her phone and called Grace. »Hey, Van Pelt, good evening. Please listen.« she said, when she was connected. »Try to get the testing results of the sea water in the _Sunset Horizon Resort_, over the last years. We think that something is not in order with the water and that Caren had to die because she found some proof for that. Whether she did discover it by chance and did not realize what she had in her hands, or she knew what it was… maybe they wanted to stop her because of that. Jane found toxic minerals that crystallized next to the hot spring. Maybe the volcanic activity has changed and brings the toxic elements in that bay now. Look for the mineral Realgar in the net.«

Grace replied: »Cho, Rigsby and I thought of the same thing – some unhealthy substances in the water; but we were close to believe that the hotel maybe dumps its own waste in the sea by night, some cleansers, maybe, or the waste water from the laundry. But toxic volcanic gas? Wow. I´ll look for it immediately.« she handed the phone to someone else. »Talk to her.« she commanded. »I need my hands.«

It was Rigsby who was in the line now: »Hi boss, I can walk short distances without the crutches.« he said. »For the other theory that we have, we´ve got also some new results. We found a person who is an ex-hotel-employee; that has a big grudge on the management of the _Sunset Horizon Resort_. When he was fired a year ago he threatened the management with blackmail for a while, and he is suspect in a sabotage attempt three months after his kick out. They say he dropped some dead fish parts into the Hot Spring baths during the night, so that the stench was unbearable. And he tried a break in or a burglar once; one other employee scared him off the little bay. Miller thinks that he tried another attempt to discredit the hotel, this time by attacking a guest. That makes bad rumor. But I also like your theory. We´ll check it out.« he cleared his throat. »How´s it going with Jane?«

»It is as it ever was.« Lisbon answered. »But you know him…«

Jane yelled from the sofa: »I tried to kiss her and she hit me. That hurt.«

»Hush!« Teresa commanded. »That was a complete different situation!«

»Wasn´t.« Jane insisted.

»It was!«

»No!«

»Yes!«

»You can´t deny that we agreed on this…«

»We never agreed on this!«

Wayne demanded, laughing so hard, that his bruises hurt again: »_Mom_, _dad_, please stop! Stop arguing!« He was also on the joke-trip. »You scare my brother and my little sister if you fight… Sorry, I can´t… I give you Cho…« he handed the phone over, laughing like mad, and while Kimball said »Hello«, in the background Lisbon could still hear Rigsby and Van Pelt laughing; even harder when Rigsby had told her what the joke really was about.

Cho asked: »Some other orders, boss?« His voice was calm, but she knew him well enough to recognize that he was also very amused.

Lisbon sighed: »Oh stop it, all three of you. You perfectly know how this story really was. Please tell me the results as soon as possible.« She cleared her throat. »And… ah… keep that water-story secret, ok? I´ve… I don´t know. Maybe that anonymous had a good reason that he did not wish the local authorities to know. And maybe this person and the employee that Miller found are the same individuals. So… There´s still much work to do. Jane and I try to get some more proof for that Realgar deposit. A water probe, maybe.«

»You must be careful, boss.« Cho advised. »Van Pelt has the site about Realgar on her laptop now. They say it´s really poisonous, and suspected to be carcinogenic. Don´t go back there, if it is not really necessary.«

Lisbon answered: »Jane has the crystals, but they´re so small, that a good lawyer could turn the whole thing against us – they might say that maybe our blackmailer put them there on purpose. We need a water probe, and one or two crystals that are still stuck on the _native_ stone, so that everybody can prove that they are out of this bay and not from elsewhere. They can´t deny that there´s something if we have these things in our hands.«

Jane insisted: »But we can´t do anything now, except taking that water probe, if you´d like, it´s far too dark outside to look for the crystals. And we would need some hammer or chisel to get them out. Maybe someone of you could bring us that equipment.«

Cho agreed: »Of course. Rigsby´s able to drive a car again, and he can bring you the equipment if you like, right tomorrow morning. If you could meet him outside the hotel area, he´ll be able to take the water probe and the small crystals that Jane´s already got, back to Hilo. We´ll send them to the CBI lab immediately.«

»Good thought, Cho, we´ll do that and take a water probe for you tonight.« Teresa turned to Jane: »Any other plans, for today?«

He smiled: »Yes. Dinner. After that the water probe, and then a good, well planned sleep.« Then he turned to the telephone: »You look for the official water testing results, will you? But I expect that they are cleaned. You´ll find nothing, even if the probe´s been taken only two weeks ago. Everything will be ok. So don´t wonder. I´m right.«

Cho asked: »How far, you think, do we have to look back in the records?«

Patrick answered: »I can´t say. The photos aren´t good enough to say how big the Realgar crystals really are, and I would not know how long they need to build up in such a deposit anyway. Just look at them reports – there must be some little detail that changed. I assume that the testing results are nicer now than they were before… If they can, why shouldn´t they play with the whole deck of cards? But don´t expect too much. They must be clever to conceal such a devastating result, maybe it´s only a little bit of a change.«

»Ok. We get the results and check them. Any other questions?«

Lisbon replied: »Yes, I have. This man, who attacked Rigsby, has he got anything to do with the hotel, or not? Please double check that. Maybe this guy was paid to attack Rigs, so to stop us to come here – and find out what we found. Or he should distract us… so that we concentrate on the fate of our colleague and miss the deciding factor. And check out this guy who blackmailed the hotel – maybe this was not mere blackmail, maybe he knew what´s going on here and tried either to stop them or to make money with it. If needed, come over here again, and ask them personally. If we find out something else tonight, we tell Rigsby tomorrow. Tell him we meet at the main street of Kahaluu-Keauhou at ten a.m.«

»We´ll do.« Kimball answered, then they disconnected the line.

Teresa looked at Jane: »Well, ok, let´s go and have dinner, and then I´ll take the water probe. That´s not much, but I think that I´ll sleep much better if I do.«

»If you think so.« Patrick replied.

:-:

»What are you telling me?« the voice of the broad man in the Italian suit was angry. He shouted into the telephone with all his might. »You tell me now? _Now_? They arrived here days ago and you did not call? I am disappointed.« He hissed the breath out between his clenched teeth. »I think I paid you enough, did I? I expect more loyalty!«

The person that was on the other end of the line answered with a very calm intonation: »I thought that they will follow the theory about the intruder, and that some unknown person is accused in the attack. Therefore I did not tell you at once, there was a good possibility that they would pick up that track. This was your chance, to get out of that with a blue eye – but it seems you messed up with the other two Agents, you weren´t clear enough to let them know that you have an intruder-problem. They might maybe know that you´re afraid on trespassers, but they still have that other thing in mind. And don´t try to threaten me. You know what I mean to you – at least as much as you mean to me. I have enough against you, if needed. So take care what you say.«

The angry man hissed again and growled: »So what you think? Can you take care that this won´t go any further, or should I do? You might want to know that the woman took a water sample out of the bay and that they have some photos from the sea floor.«

»That sounds bad. If you want to do something, then do it. _I_ definitely need to do something.« the second person answered. »I am also in very deep, but with a little bit more perspective than you have. If that, what you´ll do is the right thing; I might have an idea to get us out of it. But I think that the payment-matter needs another discussion. It´s not mere cover for some mixed up water results now, you know? It's the cover for death – if I really have to remind you on that.«

Now the angry man was suddenly panic-stricken, all his fury was gone and he gulped a few times to clear his throat, ere he said: »I´ll do something. Something to distract those CBI- Agents completely. But you´ve got to deliver them a reason for that.«

»Ok, fine. It´s also my neck that´s in charge, although I have nothing to fear. I expect your new money-arrangement within the next hours. Otherwise I can´t guarantee for nothing. Maybe one of the Agents finds out something important about you… and what you did. Maybe that the "whatever you do" to your two undercover problems will be your gulch. If you don´t do it properly, and to my satisfaction.«

The panic left the first man in a second: »Don´t you dare! It´s enough now!« He slammed the flap of his cell-phone shut and disconnected the line that way, but a few seconds later he called again. It was a cowardly admission, and the man in the Italian suit was ashamed for it, but he needed the other one – he really needed him.

A second time the voice on the other end of the line answered, this time the second person was gloating with sarcasm: »Yes? Any new agreements yet?«

»Yes. You get a new arrangement. You will find it tomorrow on your account.«

»Thank you, I´ll see what you did, tomorrow.«

:-:

Van Pelt was up late. She had the testing results on her computer now and had started to look them through. The _Sunset Horizon Resort_ was a first class hotel and open all year, and the official statutes dictated, that they had to test the hotel´s facilities once in every quarter of the year. So there was much to look at and to compare. They had agreed to separate the work between them. Of course Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt wanted to deliver the information as fast as possible. The results were very good, the water was as clean as it could be – if there weren´t the salt water, or the chlorine in the pools, it would be the best drinking water. There was no sign of Realgar, nor any other sign of anything that was not ok. Jane had asked her to look at something that would look strange. The only thing that she found was; that the results of the Hot Springs bay´s water were better than before since about one and a half years. The hotel owner had declared the change with better environmental management, and more nature protection measures. She sighed.

How could they prove the existence of the Realgar deposit without a new test? Surely not, because the testing lab would deny everything about it. They would need a new test sample, and of course they would send it over to their own, trusted laboratory. It was late now but she was sure that her boss had already taken that water probe – it would not have been Lisbon if she hadn´t.

That meant, they could only work on when Rigsby had the test samples – and when they had sent them to their CBI lab. But this would cost time; the flight alone was five hours. Surely they wouldn´t have the results earlier than in twelve, maybe eighteen hours; paying respect to the time difference on the coast. Maybe Jane and the boss were ready at the hotel by this time, and they could make the questioning together. This was really a big change in the investigation. If one of the hotel staff attacked Caren de Palmer so that she could not find out about the toxic minerals deposit, this would turn out into a real major case. They _must_ tell the local authorities at some time, there would be a lot of questioning and a long time at the court; many attorneys and lawyers, and a whole bunch of complaints and charges. If it was real that the hotel had suppressed information about the toxic in their water for such a long time, many guests were in danger and maybe harmed. This would be a real "monster" at the court.

»Hey Rigs, it´s your shift now.« she poked her sleeping colleague in the side.

Slowly he woke up: »Yep, I´m here… you found something? Where are we?«

»Not far, I fear. Please find us something about the blackmailer. But don´t give too much on the hotel manager´s statements. Maybe this accused blackmailer is a man who might be on our side, and they tried to discredit him.«

»Ok.«


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9: A watery grave

This night Lisbon found an easier sleep; although the cover-up that the hotel management was trying at the Hot Springs Bay, kept her thinking for a while. They both were there after dinner. Of course it had been dark, but some small candlelight-lamps were flickering next to the five pools. The light was not enough that one could see details, but surely they were very romantic. All of the pools were booked, and Lisbon doubted that anyone of those persons knew how dangerous it was. The hotel owners _must_ know about the conditions of their water, and took the risk that the guests were poisoned with a cold shoulder.

But what could she do without real proof? So she knelt down and took a small bottle of water out of the bay. For the few moments until the bottle was full, she concentrated on the dark water, and her pupils must have dilated a bit. Her eyes were more sensitive to the low light level now. Jane was also very quiet, he did not move, and when she looked back at him, to say: »It´s full, we can go.« she had the impression that someone else was there, at the path that led to the bay, a shadow between the shadows. But why should anyone come here without any light? Even Jane and she had used the dim, but existing lights of their cell-phones to enlighten the rocky path a little bit.

This concealed movement was only a hush, a glimpse in the night in front of a black rock; the moon was not there yet. Maybe she was wrong, but Jane must have noticed her line of vision and turned around too, but the shadow was gone.

Sooner than Lisbon wished the light of a small glass lamp with a candle inside attracted her attention and let her turn to the right. The lamp was swaying round and enlightened the surroundings in an on-off-way. It took her a second do realize, that a pair of people were coming back from their pool. They were chattering and laughing, and seemed to be happy. They passed by and wished Jane and her a good night, and when the noise of their steps and chatter was finally gone, there was no sign of any anonymous, but she could swear that she had been watched. Maybe it was only the controlling visit of the staff member who was in charge for the rental time of the pools, who had a look around if every guest was acting according to the rental agreement. Maybe he had only secretly waited for those two people that had left the pools now, but… she still had the strong feeling that someone watched, so she took Jane´s hand, to keep up their play. He also must have realized something, because only about three or four steps later he placed his whole arm around her back as if they were returning to their suite with very romantic feelings.

Soon they were there, and there was no need to discuss any more this day, so she had taken a really relaxing time in the bathroom, before she went to bed.

The bottle with the sea water was in her suitcase now, and of course she´d be the first one to go out in daylight to search for another Realgar crystal with its native stock stone, even if she´d have to dive once more in that water. The thought of the toxic substances made her a little bit uneasy. Maybe she should wait for the Special Unit that were better equipped, with dry-suits and closed helmets, so that the dissolved parts of the mineral deposit could not harm them. But what if the hotel owners started something to conceal the whole story before the Special Unit was here? She turned round in her bed and watched the palm trees in front of the terrace sway in the nightly wind. But why should they know, Jane and she were here undercover. No, whatever happened, she would try to take that Realgar sample on her own, but therefore she would need the appropriate equipment, and this she would get from Rigsby, at ten. Oh, how calming those waves sound… It´s night, maybe the flood is coming in, the waves have turned stronger since a while, or it was the wind, that moved the palm trees in front of the star-sparkled sky. She could also see a faint light coming out of the living room window that built the other closed edge of the terrace; Patrick must be still watching TV. _He´s really a bad sleeper_.

In these quiet moments the sleep started slowly to come, and it was exactly then when Jane made a sudden sound of pure surprise, then he shouted: »Lisbon! Watch out!«

She darted into a sitting position, but it happened too fast, and only the light of the TV was there to enlighten the scenery. Someone – a man, respecting the power of the attack, crashed the bedroom door open, by throwing Jane right on it. With an unmistakable groan of pain the consultant hit the ground right in front of the bed, and the unknown aggressor stood in the now open door, dark and indescribable; the light was shining in his back.

Lisbon was on her feet in an instant, jumped over Patrick and hit back. Her first blow met the aggressor unexpected, he stumbled back a few steps; so she had him out of the bedroom again. The big man coughed, she had hit him at the low chest. She attacked him once more, this time he had his defense up, blocked her strikes with shinbones or under-arms. Once or twice he tried to hit back, but Lisbon also knew her defense moves. She would never give up fighting, but there were two others, and they were fast. One of them attacked Jane who was still trying to get back to his feet; he had never ever learned to fight in self defense, and he was no real match to anyone. Nevertheless the second attacker kicked him down again by a hard blow in the ribs. Jane cried out unwillingly and coughed for breath.

»Stop! Stop hurting him, he´s already down!« Lisbon demanded, but they did not listen. »He´s no match to you, stop!«

The man who was next to Patrick asked, with a gloating sarcasm: »So you let a woman fight for you? What a shame, man! We´ll have her in a minute, and then you´ll see.« He raised his leg slowly, appreciative, for another kick, smiling this time with open disrespect.

Lisbon retreated instead of a new attack on the first intruder and turned round with speed. With a resolute move she jumped between Jane and the kick. The velocity and power of that impact was unexpected – that was not a punch to hurt; this was a gloating move of mere torture. It left her breathless for a moment and made her collide with Jane´s body, but the attack was not meant for her, so the kick missed the right spot and hit her at the hip bone instead of a more sensible body part. The pain turned into a numb feeling almost at once; she knew that it would come back, but not now. _Not now!_

She started again to fight like a cornered wild-cat, but it was obvious that she would not have enough power to overcome all three men, although the third one, a broad figure, did not participate in the fight. It was only seconds that were gone, she knew it, but to her it seemed like that this fight had had no start and no end, it just kept going on. She lost power; this was maybe the only time frame she had, and time kept slipping away.

One mighty blow against her cheekbone let her stumble; and the other man, whom she had kicked back out of the bedroom, used this without mercy. He rammed his knee into her lower chest and for a moment she could hardly breathe, and went down to hands and knees next to Jane. There were big black dots and circles that reduced her sight, but she did not like what she could see anyhow.

Jane was trying to get to his feet, and from his body speech she could tell that he attempted to shield her, that he was _really_ up to fight for her… but this would not end well.

Panting, she raised one arm and held him back with a stopping gesture, the other hand she held against the men before her.

This must be a strange situation to look at. Two men were towering over the kneeling Lisbon who had barely the breath to keep her body upright, behind her Jane, who was finally also in a kneeling position, and that third man, who stood beside it all with a blank face. »That´s enough now.« he ordered. »We need them still breathing.«

»CBI…« Lisbon said with the minimum of air she had. »We´re with the CBI, state agents, you´ve attacked the police. Step back.«

Instead, the third man, who turned out to be the hotel´s manager himself, stepped closer, bowed down to her and said: »We know that already.« Then he turned to the others: »Take them to our waste place. I´ll clean up here. I hope that this lock is not broken.« He seemed to be more concerned about the door lock of the sleeping room than of the fact that he was up to kill people from the CBI.

The two men that had been fighting Lisbon took out big butterfly-knifes and smiled. They were not afraid that Lisbon or Jane could see their faces and that was always not a good sign – if the victim sees the kidnapper, it meant only one thing: The victim is not supposed to survive, and get the chance to deliver the kidnapper to the police. The bigger of the men placed the tip of his knife at Lisbon´s throat; then they gagged them with lines of sticky tape and put hoods on their heads. The sight was gone, but she could feel the sharp pointed blade every time that she was breathing. They had to follow the intruders out.

Outside the building there was one of the e-buggies waiting, they only recognized it because they had to sit down in the back. While one of the men was driving, the other still hold the knife at Teresa´s throat and there was no possibility to move, not even think of an escape. With the e-buggy they could only use the main roads, and a few curves and edges later, they stopped again. They were somewhere next to the sea, waves were in hearing range, but strange waves, as if they hit rocks and not the beach, where were they, by all means, would they drop them off the high cliff, sixty five feet down to the sea?

»Go.« the first man commanded, and pressed the knife tip in Lisbon´s back.

After about ten, fifteen steps they stopped again, and for an instant the sound of a heavy metal plate that was moved could be heard; one of the men issued a groan of strength while he removed some heavy thing from the ground.

»Jump.« The man behind Lisbon commanded. »Jump in there!« the man insisted and tried to grab Lisbon at the upper arms to push her forward by force.

The second man hissed: »Down, now, Miss CBI, or I stab your colleague.«

The first man said: »Don´t hurt him with the knife, the coroner will maybe know, even if they are in the water for a long time. Don´t you remember what the boss said, they should drown as if somebody knocked them out and put them into the sea.«

»Shut up! I know, I am no idiot!« The man with the knife rammed his hands in Jane´s back to force him forward. It was a ghastly feeling that there was nothing beneath his feet at the next step, and then he fell a few feet, not high, but fast. When he went under the surface, he at once lost the hood that blocked his sight, and the tape on his mouth got wet and loosened. It was as dark as no one would like to imagine down here.

The water was deep and cool, not really chilly but surely colder than outside; here was no sun to heat it. It was saltwater and Jane sunk down ere he could stop that sinking by reaching the ground of that place and pushing him back up. When he was up, he could see that they were still struggling to get Teresa in the round hole, but then one of the men kicked her in the right knee and she fell down unwillingly. Jane tried to retreat as far as possible so that she did not drop on him, but the place was not as big as he wished, it was like a basin of a well, a little bit wider than the opening but still not as wide that he could stretch his arms from one side to the other – and when they had put the iron plate back on the hole, it was as dark as death down here.

»Jane…« Lisbon coughed, to get the saltwater out of her mouth, the tape had not lasted for long, but that had never been their intention. »You hurt much? You got a pretty hard kick in the ribs, can you breathe?«

»I´m ok…« he laughed sarcastic. »Everything is wonderful. I like to swim at night. And you?« then he fell silent quite abruptly.

»You need to talk to me, I can´t see you. What´s up?« Lisbon demanded.

»I could do nothing to help you out there.« his voice was low. »I´m so sorry.«

»It´s my job to keep you alive. But you can help me now, ok? Look around, search the walls, maybe here is something to hold on. We need to get out of that water.« A moment later she could feel one of his hands touching her at the hip close to the place where the kick had gone; it hurt her more than she expected. »I am not the basin wall.« she complained, to conceal the sudden revolt of pain.

»I know. Sorry, but I really don´t know where you are. But there is no ladder, the walls are made of… stone or concrete, I think, I´ve had the chance for a short look in better light when they tried to get you in. There is no ladder, no step, no basin floor within reachable distance except if you dive, Whatever it is for… the walls are all smooth and a bit slimy. One can´t even get a good hold on them. We´ve got to swim until we drown.«

»Keep on trying, maybe there is something under water, at the side walls, something to stand on or, whatever. Try with your feet.« she answered.

To be sure they swam two rounds in the pitch black pond, feeling nothing under their feet and nothing to hold on. This was bad, very bad. There was no noise except what they caused with their swimming moves, and nothing to think about. Without anything to stand on it would be impossible to try to get the drain cover open, even if they would reach it, but they could not touch the metal cover even if they stretched their arms. Right now there was nothing but black air above and nothing but black water below. They had only found out that the basin widened below them in two directions, the walls went back there and were not touchable, and the other two directions were closed, but in the meantime they had lost every sense of direction, so they could not use that information.

»Jane?« Lisbon had been swimming in silence for a while, but now she almost stopped. Her voice was low and some unwilling fear was swaying with it. »Please talk to me.«

He tried to find out where she was, but she seemed to be at the totally other side of the basin. »Let´s play something. Some old game I know. Will we?«

»I can´t escape, can I?« she replied, but inside she was smiling. His obvious concern to distract her was kind, and maybe the only thing she could hold on to.

Jane explained: »We´ll start like this: I say one word and you say the first thing that comes to your mind. And after that we paint a brain-picture out of that.«

»Ok.« she replied. »But this is no attempt to analyze me, is it?«

»In fact, it is. But it´s fun. Let´s start. Um… winter.«

»Ice.«

He said: »Music.«

»Dancing.« she replied.

»Candles.«

»Light.«

»Tea.«

»Cookies.«

Now he asked: »So what little movie can you see before your eyes now?«

Lisbon also had to smile and answered: »I see an ice-ball in the winter, maybe in Christmas time. It´s on a small lake, everyone is in ice-skates, some pairs are dancing; others only try to keep upright on the ice. There are colored candle lanterns at the side of the ice field, and a small band is playing a Christmas-song. At the shore there are small huts where they sell tea, fresh cookies, and some other Christmas specialties. That´s nice, Jane, I really like it. Although it´s cold at the ice-dance, it´s a nice picture to imagine. I haven´t been much ice-skating since I moved to California, but when I was still in Chicago, we did that…«

Jane said: »Maybe you should go and do it again. Just for fun, sometimes.«

»Yes, you´re right.« She sighed and tried to tread the water a little bit more for a time, to get warmer: »So now it´s my turn. Ehm… at first I think I´ll say… car.«

»Night.« he said at once.

»Wood.«

»Lumber-Jack.« Jane answered.

Lisbon cleared her throat: »I did not mean this to get a horror-story.«

»But I do.« he giggled. »You´re good, to get that out so fast.«

»I´ve been working with you for years now.«

»That´s right. And your next word is?«

:-:

The hotel manager immediately called his men back to the hotel room, to renew the broken bedroom door. They also took the water bottle that Lisbon had in her trolley, and threw the content into the sink. After that they washed the bottle and refilled it with clean sea water. They placed it back in the trolley; and made the bed, so that it looked like as if no one had been using the bed since the second room-cleaning that took place during the dinner time.

The most of the photos they saw showed nothing, but they took away those that could be evidence and burnt them; they also collected the film material from the hotel´s photo shop. Before midnight they were ready in the room and closed the door. No one of the neighbors had taken notice of the ongoing, the suites were isolated so good, that the noise from one could not affect the others. It was a service from the hotel, but also helpful now for the men who tried to conceal their doings. One last time the hotel manager looked round in the suite, but it was clear. He smiled. Yes, this was a good plan, and what no one knew except those hotel employees whom it concerned, was, where they really were.

He had put them in the flood basin for the rain-drain of his hotel, that had a good opening to the harbor bay. Maybe some carrion eating fish or crab would enter that drain at flood time and do their work, but at the end the bodies would be gone… and _if_ they were found somehow, this would only prove the facts that they had been kidnapped and dropped in the water by some stranger. He smiled. How good, that this small river went through his hotel area and that they could use it as a natural rain-drain – or as an easy possibility to get rid of curious people. At flood the water pressed in from the sea, and would drown them, and the ebb tide would tear the bodies out at some time through the natural outlet; if not, they would be washed out with the next heavy rain; so he had no sorrows that he would have to see them again. His contact at the police would be very content. Of course the manager was concerned about the new money agreement, but this was nothing in compare with the mass of accusations if the whole story would come out.

He had no bad conscience at all and went to sleep as easy as he ever did. The missing of two CBI Agents at would mean a lot of police of course, but it in the end he would win… all problems would be gone. He took another sip of his Brandy, then he turned off the light in his room and cuddled up in his warm bed.

:-:

When the phone rang out for the first time, all three of them startled out of their sleep. Everyone was disoriented, and at first neither Cho not Rigsby could remember where they were. The room looked much like their own hotel rooms, but it wasn´t. While the phone rang the second time, they realized that it was Van Pelt´s and slowly the memory came back. They had been working here, and must have been so tired that they slept in here.

Cho, who was next to the phone took it now and answered: »Agent Cho, CBI?« Only a few seconds later every trace of drowsiness was gone. »We come at once.« He disconnected the call and said to the others: »Caren de Palmer is awake… or kind of. The doctors are not really sure and kicked her mother out of the ICU because they want to check-up her.«

The others needed no further explanations, about five minutes later they were down in the hotel lobby and hurried out of the exit. A cab´s parking place was not far away and they took the first one that was available. When the driver heard the destination and realized that they wanted to be there as quick as possible, he tried his best – it was late night, almost early morning, and no one was on the streets except for him.

Mrs. Wilder was awaiting the Agents at the main entrance of the hospital. Usually it was closed at this time of the night; they only opened it when an emergency came in. She held the door open from the inside and let them pass; the porter looked at them curiously, but when they showed him their badges, he stepped back.

Rigsby asked: »Mrs. Wilder, will you tell us what happened exactly? Did she talk to you? Did she recognize you? Did she mention anything about the attack on her?«

»No, nothing like that.« the older woman was desperate. »She´s not able to talk because of the breathing apparatus, but she started to move as if she had a very bad dream, and cannot wake up. She pressed my hand and blinked a little bit, maybe she saw me, maybe not, it was dark in the room then… and that moment the alarm started to beep and those doctors came running, and I had to leave the Intensive.«

They were at the elevator now, and soon they stepped out at the ICU floor. Doctor Hue was already waiting for them. »I was looking for you, Mrs. Wilder. And I suspected that you´ll call the agents. Only one of them can come with us, if you wish. But…« she cleared her throat. »Your daughter is in a very critical status, it´s not what we wished to see.«

»What?« Mrs. Wilder was shocked. »But she moved, she pressed my hand, she…«

Dr. Hue stepped closer: »This was not a willingly done movement. Her brain activity started subconsciously. But we stabilized her and reduced the morphine, she´s calm now, but opened her eyes. We cannot say exactly if she can see something, or not, but you can go in now. Take the chance to say goodbye. It may be your last.«

Mrs. Wilder was shocked, but she tried to act calm: »Agent Van Pelt, would you please come with me, I know that this is difficult, but… I need some support. Would one of you please call Evan, he should be here too.«

»Yes of course.« Grace answered.

They were guided to the changing closet and got sterile garment, shoes and caps, also masks. Then Dr. Hue accompanied them into Carens room. The young woman was still on all the machines, but her eyes were open and she looked at them.

»This must be a good sign.« Mrs. Wilder was hoping, but Caren showed no sign that she knew her. She had only reacted on the fact that someone was besides her.

Dr. Hue said: »She cannot breathe on her own, but if she tries to speak I disconnect the machine for a while so that she can get out the air in her lungs through her larynx.«

Indeed Caren seemed to be up to say something, she moved her mouth; but there was no evidence, that she noticed, that she was not able to formulate words. The doctor disconnected the machine for a moment and the air in Carens lungs went by her vocal cords.

»About the two people?« she whispered. »What about the two people?«

Mrs Wilder cried: »Baby, Caren, it´s me, mom. You know me?«

For two deep breaths Dr. Hue reactivated the machine, but this time Caren seemed to know her mother. »Mom?« she asked with the next amount of air. »You tell me what about the two people? They dead? Poor people carried.«

»I do not understand you, my dear, what two people?«

»Two people in the sea… the hot sea.« Caren choked, another machine started to blink. »Mom? Are they hurt?« there was an amount of panic in her voice.

Dr. Hue reactivated the breathing machine. »This was very exhausting for her. And to be honest those words could mean everything. The EEG shows strange brain activity, maybe it´s just memories what she saw in a move or read in a book.«

Grace was skeptical: »But maybe she remembered the last thing she saw before she passed out. Maybe this was her last memory, coming back to her.«

»Everything is possible.« Dr. Hue replied. »We have to be careful.«

Mrs. Wilder interrupted: »She wants to speak, doctor. Please.«

»But only once again.« The doctor demanded. »We have to let her sleep then.«

Caren whispered: »Mom, love you. And Evan, and dad…«

»Ok, this must be enough.« the doctor said. »She needs a rest.«

Everyone could understand that, and Grace guided Mrs. Wilder outside in the visitor´s room. The older woman was crying and it was hard to leave her alone, but for luck Evan de Palmer, Carens husband, had already arrived and took care of his mother-in-law.

Van Pelt turned to Rigsby and Cho: »Maybe Caren remembered what had happened before her attack. She saw two other people in the Hot Springs Pools, they were unconscious or worse. If we count this together with what we know about the Arsenic gas that issues from melted Realgar, they could be dead; poisoned in the pools of the hotel. But for sure they were no guests, that would have been noticed by someone.«

Rigsby said: »Maybe illegal bathers… People that came by boat or surfboard to that bay for an adventure? But we do not know for sure.«

Cho proposed: »Rigsby, when you go to collect the probes from Jane and Lisbon, you could ask round if some local folks are missing.«

»Yup, I will.«

Cho continued, speaking to Van Pelt: »And you and I search the missing persons reports that are already in the police computer.«

They bade the two others in the room good-bye and all their best wishes for Caren, and left the hospital again. Some stars had vanished, and in the eastern horizon there was a faint glimpse of grey.

:-:

It was a while later when they started to feel really uncomfortable. The situation could not get any worse now; hours must have passed, but they did not know exactly. Both of them were exhausted from swimming constantly, but as soon as they stopped moving it was like sleeping in, losing power even faster. The little amount of air was used too much and it did not get better, although the tide seemed to be sinking, but there was no real proof.

Meanwhile the water felt so very cold that they doubted that it really had over seventy degrees Fahrenheit. They had surely started to fall into hypothermia and they were exhausted from swimming. Teresa knew for sure that she was in the first grade of too low body temperature; she shivered only from time to time; between those short periods her muscles had not the strength to keep on trembling for warmth. Her limbs were somewhat without feeling, the hurting spots from the blows were long forgotten, and her skin was not much warmer than the water, and she had the impression that the water temperature had started to decrease since a while; and there was a slow but existing current that tried to drag her down, she had to fight against it. It was dead quiet.

»Lisbon?« Jane had not spoken for a while and his voice was unstable. »I am so cold, I think I can´t… I can´t swim any longer.«

»Don´t give up ok, Jane, come… You must not give up… move… « She stretched out her hand and tried to touch him. His skin was really cold, and his clothes kept dragging him down. He could barely breathe, but did not tremble; not even as less as she did. He was much too quiet for the situation, and his power to keep swimming was almost gone. »Think on the story of the frogs in the milk can, ok, one of the frogs stopped moving and died, the other one swam so hard that the turned the milk into butter, and could jump out of the bucket… Jane? Jane, you hear me? Come over to me, I´ll try to hold you up, maybe we could give us some body warmth, but we need to be swimming.«

His voice was so soft that she had difficulties to understand him: »This is no milk-can; this is dead cold water…« he inhaled a mouthful of water and coughed for air once, but then he gave up, he really gave up resisting the current...

»No, you won´t!« she slipped her arms under his shoulders and tried to hold him up, although she was sinking now. The cold current was stronger the more she got under water and dragged her feet away, she kept on fighting to get back to the surface to breathe, gasped for air, but this did not help much, the oxygen level in the sink was low and the carbon-dioxide much too high. It made her drowsy to inhale so much of the used air at once.

That moment more life came back to Jane, he turned around to her and said: »Lisbon, the water… it´s not entirely salty, it´s… brackish. It´s the river, I´m sure.«

»River?« Teresa asked back.

»Yes, there´s a small river that crosses the hotel area… to the harbor bay, this must be it, at first the flood pressed in so we…« he coughed. »Did not recognize. Remember, I was here to check out the harbor, I saw the rain drain, the river, by then.«

»You mean if we follow the current we might get out? But what if it is too far to the harbor?« She tried to remember. »But the waves sounded close by. Only what… what if there are bars and we can´t get through?«

»Then we´ll never know, I guess.« Jane said. »We´ll die here anyway. Or we try.«

»We try.« Lisbon said. »Stay close.«

It was so dark and ghastly under the water that they nearly lost the direction, but the current kept dragging them forward. Fortunately, because they had not enough strength left to really try to swim. Teresa could feel the walls of the drain pipe around her. Suddenly the cold water spit her out in a warmer surrounding, the harbor bay. The sea water was warmer outside, even in the night, and brought back some life to her limbs. She had the power to turn round and look for Jane. Together they swam to the harbor side where they could use a boats stair to out of the water. The island wind was blowing and made them feel colder within a few seconds.

Lisbon said: »We need to get out of those clothing. But where could we go?« She tried to wrench out some water of her night gown.

»Back to our suite, of course. This would be the last place that they search for us, and we have all our things there. And there we could have a hot shower.«

»I agree to that.« Teresa said, shivering. »Let´s go.« Her hurt body parts issued a numb throbbing but the muscles worked somehow, so she could get up.

They hurried through the quiet hotel area and arrived at their suite about ten minutes later, exhausted and even colder. While Jane went to the bathroom immediately, Lisbon could not wait to see what the intruders did to their evidence. She was careful to leave no drops behind, when she closed the light-shading curtains, but took a look at the photos at once, using only the small table lamp. It was as she had feared; every picture of the undersea mineral deposit was gone, she had only the photos of the nice part of the coral reef; and some not very clear underwater pictures of the color scratches on the wall, even those photos where one could see the dead fish were gone.

She was still searching for the plastic bag with the small red crystals that Jane had found, but this bag was also gone – at least it seemed so, but Jane could calm her down, he said out of the bathroom: »The crystals are with my sweets in my bag, they´d have to look really closely; I don't think that they got them. Look after them if you want. And if you are there, would you please hand me some fresh clothes?«

Lisbon went to his trolley. It had been searched by the intruders; that was clear; it was packed as nice and perfect as none would do in real life, but the candies were untouched and she found the plastic bag with the crystals inside. At least one proof was still there, cause she doubted that the water inside the bottle in her own bag was still the original probe. They must have changed it.

She knocked on the bathroom door and handed Jane one of his suits, underwear, a shirt and socks. »Thank you.« he said. »Ready in a few minutes.«

They changed places and after another ten minutes of a warming shower Lisbon was feeling a little bit better. She came back to the living room and sat down besides Jane on the couch, when she had turned off all lights and reopened the curtains.

»This was close.« she said. »We´re dead to the manager and his accomplices.«

Patrick smiled: »Yes, we are. But that makes us free… as if we were really ghosts, if ghosts would exist. They won´t be looking for us, and so we will be able to catch our own killer.« He chuckled. »Have you ever expected that you´ll be able to go after your own murderer one time? I wonder who is the partner of the hotel manager.«

»Yes, that would be interesting… But we have to take another water probe; we have to give it to Rigsby in the morning, as planned. Hide somewhere, while I go and take it.«

»Lisbon, you don´t really think that I´ll let you go alone?«

She smiled: »Come with me then, four eyes see more than two. And then we have to get some rest, warm ourselves up entirely and try to sleep a little bit.«

It was more strenuous than they expected it to be to go to the little Hot Springs Bay, their bruises started to hurt and when they arrived in the hotel room again, they had the impression that the sky had started to get a grayish. Lisbon took the real water sample and the Realgar crystals in her little beach bag, the wrong bottle she left in her trolley.

»Hey, do you have any idea where we could hide?« she asked her consultant, who looked at least as tired as she felt.

He showed her a little voice recorder that he had in his trolley, ere he put it in his suit pocket. »Your bed?« Jane asked. »I mean… under the bed. When I stumbled against it, I recognized that there must be enough space beyond it.«

»Yup, there is.« Lisbon said, and went to the other room, to have a look under the bed. »Maybe we could get some sleep, this night was exhausting.«

»I´d sleep everywhere, I think.« Jane answered, then he followed her in the bedroom.

The space under the bed was unexpected comfortable; the carpet was soft and it was warm. They took two spare cushions and one spare bedspread with them, and it was not long ere the sleep started to come. For an undefined time they both took a nap; and felt much better when they woke up. It was bright day outside, and in the room everything was good visible. It must be already breakfast time or later. The only thing about being back to normal body temperature was, that they could feel the bruises and bumps from the fighting in the night much better now.

Jane slowly turned round to Lisbon and said: »Good morning. It was nice sleeping with you. We should repeat that one time.«

»Don´t try to be funny.« Teresa replied, but she was smiling. »How long do we have to wait here, you think? It´s almost half past eight, we have to meet Rigsby at ten.«

»We´ll see, when we´ll see. But I think it can´t be long. At least we are two CBI-people missing, and that police contact would want to know the facts as soon as poss…« he interrupted his own words, because there was a noise. The door of the suite was opened. Jane put his small recording device in front of them – there was no better way to get a good, undeniable statement, than to record it.

»We are concerned.« a voice explained. That voice belonged to the third man, who had been in the room that night, the hotel manager. »Therefore we called you. You see, no one is here. They were last seen at the dinner yesterday evening, by one of my hotel staff members. Another staff member said that they were taking a walk after the dinner, and two guest confirmed that. Then there was this pool boy who cleans the Hot Springs after the last guest. He said that he had seen two persons walking round at the rocks, and suddenly they were gone, without coming back. And today they were both missing at the breakfast.«

Another voice answered: »So this is the story that you thought of. A good idea, I can use that. The CBI Agents disappeared. Let me think about it for a while.«

:-:

Teresa startled and looked at Jane, who took a deep breath and slowly shook his head, in a _sometimes-I-hate-it-when-I-am-right_ way. It was Detective Miller. If everything would be going the right way, he would be here with one of the others, but he was alone, he did not tell the CBI Agents that he was here; and last but not least he spoke to the disgusting hotel manager in a very close manner – he treated him not as a subject, but as an accomplice.

They started to search the room, and found the photos, on which Teresa had looked before. Miller said: »These are the rest of the photos? Are you sure that there is nothing to see on them?« He looked at the pictures, meanwhile he continued his speech: »I overheard one phone call they made from our rented car. They called their colleagues about the theory that an intruder maybe hit Caren de Palmer down, and they also started to search about your water.« he fell silent for a while, then Miller invented a new story: »What if that ominous blackmailer of yours is behind all this? Wouldn´t that be a good idea?«

The hotel manager was surprised: »The blackmailer?« He kept thinking for a longer time now, »But yes, this is a good idea. Let´s say that this blackmailer tried to put some poison or toxic waste in our beloved Hot Springs Bay that killed the fish, and would harm our guests. This could give us a good reason to close the Hot Springs for a while.«

»Fine.« Miller answered. »At least you are good at story telling. Ok, the official report will be: The blackmailer made a first attempt to poison the water, when Miss de Palmer was attacked, and now this time, he was disturbed again. The blackmailer realized somehow that Mr. and Mrs. Jane tried to take a water probe, and therefore he decided to kill them. Of course the blackmailer did not know that the people he had killed were CBI Agents. And now the whole police will be after him. He´s a cop-killer and no one likes cop-killers.«

The hotel manager was excited: »Really, really good! So we get also rid of him. Could you maybe take care that he is killed when you try to arrest him?«

»Of course I can, I also killed the man I paid to attack this Agent Rigsby, and no one suspects anything. It would be much too dangerous to let anyone survive. But that may cost you a little bit of money – and you´ll also have to be prepared to pay regress money, if someone feels unpleased by the closure of the pools. And close this deposit leak! It is enough now, we have to put an end to this. Remove every proof that it has been there. You have to be fast. If you cannot find the leak you have to close the whole pipe system. Install an artificial sea-water-heater if needed. This costs more but I don´t have to remind you on how much you will lose if someone starts to go to court with the accusation that you let guests bathe in toxic water since almost one year. And I don´t speak of those two deaths last week, on the attack on Miss de Palmer and of disappearance of two CBI Agents.«

The manager gulped hard, then he asked: »So now, what about the Agents?«

»What have you done to them? Something that I can work with, I hope?« Miller asked.

The other one replied: »Yes. They are drowned, and the drain system will bring them out in the bay with the next heavy rain. We might find their bodies then.«

»Ok. That´s good.« Miller started to think. »The blackmailer knocked them out and drowned them.« About minute later he continued: »We will try to find the bodies, of course. But if the blackmailer drove out to the sea with them, they might never be found.«

The manager explained: »In fact, this blackmailer is no real blackmailer, you know? This man, Peter Valliant, was our dive instructor in the hotel area; a marine biologist. He noticed the change in the marine life, and started to ask questions. Therefore I kicked him out.« He sighed. »Can you really take him out too? He´s the last real witness.«

»I will look after that.« Miller said. »I will go back to Hilo now, to tell the Agents the sad news. We will come back in a few hours with the whole squad. This is the time frame you have, to get that Hot Springs Bay ready for an investigation.«

The hotel manager took a deep breath: »Ok, my men try to remove every proof for that Realgar deposit. Maybe we find an old barrel that we can throw in, to fake a poisoning.«

»It´s about time, you know? If you have thought of doing something against that toxic gas a little bit earlier, those photos they took would never exist. We will close it and put a big black blanket over it all.« The Detective growled. »Everything would have worked out fine if I would have been here with that CBI-woman.« Miller turned around and left the room.

The hotel manager looked round in the room again, but he seemed to be content. He shut the door behind him, after he had taken Jane´s brown shoes with him.

»Hey, my shoes!« Jane protested. »That´s unfair, he could have taken yours.«

Lisbon asked: »This is a real swamp of corruption, and bribe, as well as the cover up of murder, and you are concerned about your shoes?«

»My shoes are not guilty, they´re helpless and ruined, if they drop it in the sea.«

They crawled out from under the bed and stretched. »Let´s go and meet Rigsby now.« Lisbon decided. »The faster he has the evidence, the faster we can get this people.«


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Cleaning up the mess

»Whoa, you look like as if you had a rough night.« Rigsby joked, when they met at the main street coffee shop in the next village. He tried to conceal his concern behind this played-up funniness, but looked at them closely.

Lisbon´s right cheekbone was bluish, and she could not walk without pain, but her thoughts were still focused at the case. »Yup, someone used us as punch-bags.« she said. »And this someone was the hotel managers and two accomplices. They knew very well who we were because there is a traitor at the police... It´s Detective Miller. Jane, would you please let him listen to the conversation you recorded in the hotel room?«

A few minutes later Rigsby was informed and looked troubled: »We trusted him. He gave us no sign, not a single one, that he´s with them. And I still can´t believe that it was Detective Miller who hired that man who attacked me and then killed him.«

»And they know about the fact that we´re on the water.« Jane added.

Teresa explained: »Miller has put a spy device in each car he offered us and listened to all our talking; maybe he´s placed a device in one of your bags too, so that he could hear everything you discussed when you were in the hotel. He was informed about everything. Therefore he knew that we were trying to get new water test results and therefore he accepted the plan the manager had, to kill us. They are all in this cover-up-swamp.«

Rigsby was confused, and looked back at the rented car with a suspicious eye. »What a story.« He shook his head. »Who the heck could have thought of this?« He glanced at Jane. »Did you suspect anything like that from the beginning? Why else should you put up such a story with the boss, if not?«

Patrick shrugged his shoulders. »Well, I thought, _if_ the attack on Mrs. Caren de Palmer was concealed as an accident, someone who´s with the police must get his hands on the evidence to mess it up. I did not know by then, who it was. But I got some bad feeling when I first talked to Detective Miller. It was a little bit strange that Miller tried to distract Lisbon in any way he could. He persuaded her to so many events; like sightseeing, dinner, lunch… And well, I must say, I did not like the way he treated Lisbon. I still remember his words when he first heard my voice, that´s when I called you at the boat, remember?«

Lisbon nodded: »What was it that you did not like?«

»He did not know me by then, and the one of the first things he said to me, and I am going to quote: _You don´t have to be jealous, I take good care of her_. _The lady is safe with me. _So tell me, which woman does not want to hear such words? Although it does not seem too obvious, it implicates that he´s got some special interest in you; another man in her life – means me – does not have to be jealous. Which in fact means: "oh yes of course you have to be jealous. _Haha_." I know that Lisbon´s not an easy bait, but not that tough. He knew that you´re her team and checked out your relationships at once, but he never met me; and used me as the first chance to make clear that he´s got some more interest in Lisbon.«

»And what if he really had?« she asked. »But no…« she sighed. »He only wanted to use my affection to start sweet-talking to me. He betrayed us from the beginning.«

Jane agreed: »It´s not that I am not ok with you having a relationship, but if, then an honest one. So…When they arrived so late at the hotel, although Lisbon told me that they´d start early in Hilo, it was obvious that he again tried to distract her, with whatever, maybe overwhelm her with impressions before she´d even arrive here. So I thought he was up to distract her in the hotel too. It´s easy, you know, to play on people if it is as nice as here.«

Lisbon cleared her throat: »It is embarrassing that I did not recognize that myself.«

»No one of us did.« said Rigsby. »We were all blindfolded by his friendliness.«

»Maybe he would have also been buttered up if I knew him from the beginning. He must be very good, to fool all of you.« Jane answered. »Thanks to Doc, that his ice cream kept me sick for a while…« He laughed because Rigsby seemed to be confused.

»Do I have to understand this?« the younger Agent asked.

Lisbon shook her head: »No. Just promise me that you´ll never try it, if he offers you ice cream when we´re back in Sac. And don´t take any sweets from him for a while.«

»Okay?« now Wayne was even more confused.

Teresa let him not much time to think about it, she said: »Watch out that these probes get to Sac as soon as possible. It would be the best, if you take them to our lab personally.«

Rigsby nodded: »Of course. I´m not very good in running round and catch bad guy right now, I can hardly press the pedals in the car. By the way, boss, did you get the lines sent you, about Caren de Palmer?«

»No! Rigsby, what happened? I really forgot to look at my cell-phone during all that.«

»Caren kind of awoke, but the doctors are not so sure about it. She talked - confusing words, but at least for _her_ they seemed to make sense. She asked about the fate of two people, who were in the hot water. Maybe this was the last thing she saw ere she was knocked down. Maybe not, maybe it was just some nonsense brain activity. But if it is true, there are two people who died or were seriously injured by something in the water. As we know now, it was most likely the toxic gas.«

»This gets worse all the time.« Lisbon said. »But it is possible. If the volcanic activity melted more Realgar at once and the arsenic gas came up, it may have been fatal; or made them unconscious and they drowned. You started to look in the missing peoples reports?«

»Of course. Cho and Grace are working on it. I started early in Hilo. So the hotel manager and his mercenaries are responsible for two unknown deaths, if this is right. I hope we can prove that, it would bring them down. But this might be difficult. The bodies could be far away by now, and we´ll never be able to proof it if we don't find them and some Realgar remains in their organism.«

Jane said: »By the way, we _have_ two more victims of the hotel manager and his associates! They are also in charge for the murder of two CBI Agents – sorry, I mean, one Agent and one Consultant. And we can proof this without any doubt. We have the recordings and ourselves as evidence.«

»You are dead?« Rigsby shook his head in disbelief. »You look much too alive to be dead. Would you explain it please?«

Lisbon nodded: »Ok, I´ll explain. They attacked us in the hotel room in the night, beat us down and locked us up in a drain basin, where the flood pressed in. We should drown, and were close to, but then Jane was dragged down by some current, and realized that we were swimming in colder, brackish water, and that it was the river. Maybe they thought we´ll be dead when ebb started or they did not calculate the rain in the mountains, we´re alive, but Miller and the hotel manager and his associates think we are gone.«

»Ok, fine.« Wayne was not entirely happy with that explanation, but asked: »Can I do something? Do you need a doctor? Or at least some pain killers?«

Jane thought about it for a while, then he said: »Maybe it is better if we come with you to Hilo and don´t return to the hotel. Van Pelt and Cho can collect our things. We´ll help you with the search for the missing people. And it will be a nice surprise for Detective Miller if we are safe and sound. He will be very happy.«

That moment, Lisbon´s phone rang out and she answered the call on speaker, so that everyone could hear the conversation: »Yes, Van Pelt? What is it?«

Grace seemed to be utterly surprised to hear her, but accepted the new situation at once: »Why did Miller tell me that you and Jane are missing, and probably dead?«

»Because we are.« Jane replied.

Rigsby added: »Don´t worry, Grace, it´s ok. We´ll explain when we are all together. But let them be dead for Miller and all of the local police. I also only know that they are dead.«

Lisbon tried a short explanation: »Miller is involved in the bribe affair. We´ve got the proof on record. He is going to tell you a story about our disappearance and that someone killed us, the same one who has attacked Caren. In fact, the hotel management is also guilty, but they try to get this ominous _blackmailer_ in charge for it all. Follow Miller to the hotel, and if you are in our room – he surely will bring you there – please bring our suitcases and personal belongings with you to Hilo. Play the game, and learn how they want to cover up the story. You know the truth… but tell no one. Just listen to the so called "facts" that the manager and Miller deliver you and record them if possible. In the meanwhile Jane and I try to find this blackmailer… now we know his name: Peter Valliant. We need to warn him and offer him assistance. I am sure that he´ll be happy to hear that. And as soon as we have the results from the testing, we close the bag.«

»Understood, boss.« Grace answered, and turned to Cho: »I must tell you something really sad. The boss and Jane are missing and maybe dead.«

Cho replied with a calm voice: »I am shocked and close to freak out.«

They all laughed, of course he had heard the whole talking and was totally informed.

Rigsby asked: »Shall we start back now? Even if the car has some spy device in it?«

Teresa answered: »We´ll try to locate it, but we must not remove it. I hope it´s not a camera, only a bug, that would be suspicious. Jane and I will keep secret on the back seats. Call Van Pelt again when we are in the car and tell her that you are concerned because you did not meet us. But tell her that you are heading back to Hilo because of… whatever. Maybe you forgot your pain killers in the room, or something.«

»Ok.« Rigsby agreed. »And shall I drop you by a doctor, or not?«

»No, this has to wait until we got them all, if they make a med rep in the hospital they might know that we´re alive they´ll probably do something even worse. Maybe we can get hold of Dr. Hue who can visit us in the hotel room to take some evidence photos of our wounds, but this must be top secret and at first we have to check if we can trust her. You have to lull all them into a false sense of security, as he tried with me. If they want us dead, we will be dead. Listen to every word Miller says and record it for the report. We´re one step ahead now, and no one of them knows. And we must get this secret blackmailer.«

:-:

It was not as much as difficult as they thought to find the blackmailer. When they arrived in Hilo it seemed as if the anonymous had already heard from the new happening at the hotel; and tried to make contact with the CBI Agents on his own. Van Pelt had got no chance to call them, but she had sent a short message, that she had an interesting phone call with this man – as soon as she got his name she had started digging and found out that Peter Valliant was still working on the island as a diving instructor; and to her surprise for usual not far away from the _Sunset Horizon Resort_. She said that he´ll be waiting next to the hotel and that he will recognize Rigsby, because he had to use crutches. Really a stranger was waiting in front of the hotel and when Rigsby got out of the car, he approached him fast.

»You are the Agent that got hurt. The colleague of the young Agent I talked a few days ago, and who phoned me only two hours ago. Now that you found me, there´s no point in trying to be anonymous any more. Can we talk?« He backed off, when he saw that two other persons were with Agent Rigsby. »Who are they? From the local police?«

»No.« Lisbon replied. »We´re also with the CBI, and were undercover at the _Sunset Horizon Resort_. We took water samples and overheard a conversation of the manager with someone from the local police. So you were dead right not to trust them. They want to accuse you in the attack on Mrs. Caren de Palmer, and on the attack on us. The murder of two law enforcement officers – maybe they try to kill you. So they try to get rid of you.«

»Why the heck! What have I done?« Mister Valliant was shocked. »Help me, please.«

Jane said: »You tried to reveal the truth, did you? And they did not like that.«

The other man answered: »Yes, and it was not of any bad meaning, I never tried to blackmail them or something. I don´t want money, surely not… see, I am marine biologist. Once I worked at the hotel as diving instructor, but they fired me when I realized that something was not in order with the water; the corals started to die. Since then they cancelled the "real" diving classes. The guest can only go snorkeling without a guide, so no one can tell them the truth. They also forbid the guests to leave the security of the bay; they tell them that the motor boats are outside. No one sees the impact of the dissolved Realgar on the sea life outside of the bay. The deposit is not very big, though, but I assume it is large enough, that there are really dangerous gas leaks sometimes. I tried to tell them more than once, but then they started to ruin my life. I feared that someone of the local police is with them, but I don´t know names. I tried since almost one year to persuade them to react to that environmental catastrophe. But they did not listen. They decided to cover up the whole thing. It is negligent but they won´t listen.«

»May we ask you for a full statement on this?« Lisbon asked. »My consultant and I will see it through with you. Rigsby, you start off and get us those probes tested. Call as soon as you get the results, and then do the phone service for us in Sac. So your bruises can heal a little bit better. And let your med rep get copied for the files.«

»Yes.« Wayne answered. »I still can´t believe that Miller paid a mercenary to attack me. But it makes sense. _He_ told us which bar we could visit, so he could place his little helper at the right corner, and then he only had to call me to lure me out. I won´t imagine how this story would have turned out if he was with you at the hotel.«

»We´ll never know.« Jane said. »But maybe he would have given the story the turn to the intruder story from the beginning, and we would be after some unknown person.«

Peter Valliant, the marine biologist, asked: »If you are the police, maybe you can help friends of me… I mean, they are not really friends, I know them since two weeks or so. I am working as a free diving and marine life instructor at a beach club not far away from the _Sunset Horizon Resort_, because there are another bunch of good reefs. There were a group of backpack-tourists that travel round Hawaii. They told me once after a trip that they were interested in the Hot Springs Bay, sneak in there as kind of adventure. I warned them that it is dangerous, but they maybe thought it was exciting. Two days later two of their group, a boy and a girl, both barely twenty, were missing. They thought that they ran off to a quiet place at first, but when they not reappeared they asked me where the next police station is to make a missing peoples report.«

»That´s what Caren said!« Rigsby remembered. »Two people in the pools.«

Lisbon shook her head. »Rigs, we will take care of it. We need the testing results.«

The younger Agent nodded, left the rented car behind and took a taxi to the airport. With a little bit of luck they would have the results in the evening.

Lisbon turned to the diver: »Would you come with us, upstairs to the hotel room, and make the report? The CBI laptop is not connected to the system of the locals. We can use Rigsby´s room for a while.«

»I am so happy to do this.« Mister Valliant answered. So this has finally an end.«

Jane pointed out a warning signal, when they entered the room, and before they started to talk with the diving instructor, they searched the room for any bug. They were sure that Miller had not been in here, but found nothing. To be really sure they retreated on the balcony to take the report.

Patrick chose the balcony bed and sat down there instead of next to the table: »I´ll take a break, if you don´t mind.« he said to the others. »I´ll listen to your story, of course, but I think I already have the answers.«

Lisbon asked: »Could you do us a favor and let us know your revelations?«

»No, not now. Take your report first and then I´ll tell you.«

Teresa sighed and turned to Mr. Valliant. »I am ready, would you please start?«

:-:

Meanwhile Cho and Van Pelt were on a very sad mission. Miller had called them two and a half hours ago and told them that Jane and Lisbon were missing, without any sign. They had been driving the whole time and were at the hotel entrance now. A very worried looking Miller and a nervous hotel manager were awaiting them.

»I am so sorry.« Detective Miller said; when they left the car. These were his first words, and he was a good actor. »I didn´t mean to trouble you while you were driving, but we found one shoe floating in the water. It´s maybe one of Jane´s. I mean, your consultant, who accompanied your boss on this mission. See, I was speechless when he took over for me, but maybe that was their doom. If _I_ had been here, I would have taken care on her. We have no evidence yet, but we fear that they have been attacked.«

Cho demanded: »Please guide us round, we need a look at all places they might have been before they disappeared. We must find some evidence.«

At first they went to the suite and Van Pelt had to smile unwillingly. Such a romantic and nice place would have seduced anyone – but she knew better and concentrated on the look around. Miller presented them the photos and explained that the blackmailer tried to poison the water in the Hot Springs Bay with a leaking barrel of toxic waste; therefore the water probe that they have taken would show clear signs of poisoning. And that explained also the one photo, where they could see a few dead fish – everything was the guilt of the blackmailer. Of course the bay was closed now, because the water was dangerous, and a few hotel guests had come round to watch the police investigation.

If they did not know the truth, the story would be very good indeed. A pair of divers brought up a metal barrel full of water, with a big leak on its side and there were a few dead fish on the shore, it was a really good play, also for the other guests.

The manager was very worried, full of self-reproach: »This should never have happened; I should have paid the blackmailer. Our guests are in harm and we need to clean up the whole bay now, if I only had paid him, this Peter Valliant! Your colleagues would be alive.« He sighed and was close to a breakdown. »I am so sorry! Of course it was a good idea to do an undercover, because they did not want to scare the blackmailer off, but he must have caught them in the night. Do you think that you´ll find their bodies someday?«

Van Pelt kept cool: »I don´t give up hope that they are alive. One does not kill people so easy. This man must be really crazy to make the step from blackmailer to murderer.«

»But see…« Detective Miller said. »We found Mr. Jane´s shoe here in the water, and this _Peter Valliant_, is really crazy. He´s gone so far to poison the water! This is harmful and close to murder. From there it is only one small step to drown some enemies.«

Cho asked: »And which connection you see between the attack on Mrs. de Palmer?«

»I fear that this was him too.« the manager said. »The next day we found fresh marks of boat color on the rocks at the shore. Maybe he wanted to check out the right place for his poison barrel, and the young woman surprised him. He knocked her down so hard, that she´s got only a ten percent chance to live. Another proof, that he is capable of murder.«

Grace whispered to Cho: »And we know other examples that they are capable of murder, only to conceal their conspiracy.«

Kimball nodded and the corners of his mouth twitched a little bit but as ever he could hide his smile deep inside – only those who know him very well noticed it. He summarized: »All evidence that we could see here was that they never returned to their suite after dinner, and here you see one shoe of Mr. Jane. What if they only decided to spend the night together, somewhere totally secret? Some kind of step-out of all duty? A sudden feeling?«

Grace retreated a little bit closer to Kimball, who was putting up this new story, as kind of bait. Right now she was not really sure why, but in a minute or so it would be clear.

Cho continued: »Well, I mean… Detective Miller, you knew, like we do, that they were both here. They are colleagues; you understand what I mean; on an undercover mission. It would be really, really embarrassing for them when anyone found out that… there was more. I think you know what I want to say. So they hid somewhere else.«

Van Pelt played a "hurray"-surprised, happy face: »You think they finally realized what they mean to each other, oh, this is so romantic, Cho! Of course I think that they won´t do that in their undercover room…« she giggled. »The boss will be so furious when we find out. Just imagine someone saw them, or if I had called in the wrong moment, wow, how… fine!«

Cho nodded: »This is a good possibility; the boss would try to conceal any relationship. This shoe can be from everybody, it is no proof. We should search the surroundings and the little hotels for them. I don´t think they are dead, they´re just run off with each other.«

Miller insisted: »No! No, I don´t think so. I am afraid that this is only the last straw of hope you are clinging on. I am _sure_ if we start a great search we would find their bodies, or some other trace. We have a cop-killer here, you cannot deny this. And if I find him, he will get a trial that brings him down. He´ll never again get the chance to kill any cops or to threaten the guests of this hotel. Agent Van Pelt, Agent Cho, I know it is difficult to accept, but your colleagues, your friends, are dead. I am afraid that it would be not useful to call the coast guard, the water is very deep outside and the currency is very strong. The bodies might be everywhere, and there are…« he gulped. »A lot of sharks.«

»Sharks?« Grace asked. She cleared her throat. »You think we can't do anything?«

»No. We cannot do anything except to catch their murderer, this Peter Valliant. Let the manager of the hotel and his staff work on this poison problem. We have to concentrate on the blackmailer. He is a danger that can´t be neglected anymore. He is a murderer, and only out of luck he did not poison a lot of hotel guests. This will be a difficult cleaning mission. Let us take all evidence here and then return to Hilo with everything we have.« He looked round. »By the way, where is Rigsby? You called him, I think?«

»Yes, we called him from the car, and sent him home to the CBI. He should inform our bosses about the missing of our boss and Jane. It is a difficult mission and we are sorry that he has to do this alone.« Grace explained. »We want to be with him as soon as possible.«

Miller smiled: »I understand that. Then let us find the killer.« He turned to the manager: »You keep an eye on that every trace of the poison is gone as fast as possible. Scrub the rocks with a toothbrush if needed, and then you are bound to make a new water test, so that your guests are safe. You must send me a copy of the tests, if everything is all right you can reopen your Hot Springs Bay. Not a moment earlier.«

»Yes, Detective.« the manager confirmed.

Cho said: »We´ll pack the things of our friends and take them home with us.«

»That's very nice of you.« Miller said. »May I add, that I am very sorry for your loss, Teresa was such a nice person. I am sorry for her loss.«

»Hm.« Grace said. »We need time to cope with this. We lost two friends.«

»I fully understand.« the Detective replied. »Take yourself the rest of the day free, I will search for the killer on my own.«

»This is very kind of you.«

:-:

They returned to Hilo and of course Van Pelt and Cho met with Lisbon and Jane immediately. Teresa and Patrick had used the free time to search for bugs in their clothes and bags. There was one in Van Pelts laptop bag and one in a pen that Miller offered Cho as a present from the local PD. The younger Agents were mildly surprised about that, but now they were safe and could discuss the latest news.

»Now we have to wait until Rigsby sends us the test results of our lab.« Lisbon finally said. »It´s later at the coast, and I hope that he´ll be annoying enough to get the scientists to test them today.« she cleared her throat. »Cho, Van Pelt, would you please go to the local testing laboratory and check them out personally? I think it would be enough time still, ere they close for today. Here I have a small amount of the real water probe for you, and Jane´s still got one of the Realgar crystals. Let them test it and confront them with the problem.«

Cho agreed and proposed: »While we do this, you should call a doctor who´s trustworthy and able to report your fight-marks for the statement.«

»Yes.« Lisbon said. »We plan to visit Dr. Hue in the hospital and have a talk with Mrs. Wilder and Mr. Evan de Palmer too. Mister Valliant will join us. We are only those who delivered the evidence, but they have to go to court as prosecutors. I want them informed before we reveal the truth to Miller. By the way, Jane, would you please enlighten us now with your theory, so that we can hear it all?«

»A pleasure.« Patrick replied, and started: »The hotel manager and his top staff members knew the existence of that Realgar deposit from its beginning, and tried to keep it secret as long as nothing happened. But the marine biologist Valliant noticed that there was something wrong, so they fired him and barred him the access to the site that way, but he did not give up trying to persuade them that there´s something dangerous going on. Maybe there were deaths before, maybe only people who felt sick. We will never really know when Miller got part of that cover-up, only if he tells us. When again two people were injured or died because too much gas was leaking out, they had a problem: They had a witness. So they took out Caren de Palmer, but they were not able to get rid of her so easy because she was a guest that would be missed; so they let it look like an accident and hoped that she´ll not survive. They did never count on that Caren would reawake to tell anyone the last horrible scene she´d witnessed. When we were assigned to that case, they got problems. It was difficult for them to keep their cover-up, with us searching round here, but they had a plan. They wanted to distract you so much that you would have taken any story – the story of the intruder they wanted to tell you again and again. What would have happened, if you, Lisbon, would have gone to the hotel with Miller? I´ll tell you. He would have tried to enchant you so much in his little cob-web, that you´d taken the intruder theory serious and never even thought of the water as the real reason. You liked him. It impressed you some way, didn´t it, when you got the feeling that he had real interest in you – some interest that goes deeper than those of partners of the local police and CBI. Didn´t it?«

»I was really getting a little bit fond of him, but…« Lisbon shook her head. »I never thought that he just tried to use me.«

»But that´s what he did. When I took you in the lobby I watched him closely. He was _not_ disappointed because I apparently embraced and kissed you, no… he was shocked because he lost his chance to have influence on you. So he tried with Van Pelt, Rigsby and Cho, to turn them completely on the case about the man who attacked Rigsby, who is… what a wonder, dead, and can´t tell anything. And then he brought up the story with the blackmailer, slow and with an uncertain undertone at first, but then – what a surprise, the blackmailer is a cop killer. Whoever catches him, thinks he catches a dangerous villain, and no one likes cop-killers. Most likely that would have been dead before he could make a report. But now we have him on a safe place, and the case can be closed. We only need the proof of the water testing and the statements of the local lab.«

Cho said: »Difficult story, but I think we have enough evidence to proof it all.«

»And that's all we can do.« Lisbon said. »We came here to investigate in Caren de Palmers case and that´s what we did. We found out why she was so gravely injured, and what´s behind all this. So now let us collect the last pieces until Rigsby calls.«

Everyone was ok with this and they separated. They could trust Dr. Hue, who had proved to be a really good doctor, Lisbon as well as Jane went to her for a medical report on their injuries – the marks of the nightly attack were clearly visible now. Meanwhile the other two started off to visit the laboratory.

:-:

At nightfall Rigsby called. Lisbon and Jane were still in the visitor´s room of the hospital to discuss the case with Mrs. Wilder, Mr. de Palmer and Mr. Valliant. Teresa switched on the speaker so that all could listen to Rigsby´s words.

»Our lab confirmed the existence of dissolved Realgar in the water, and that the crystals are also that toxic mineral. They also say it is most likely that bigger gas leaks can occur and that the gas is very toxic. The substances also can be poisonous if they get in touch with the skin. So this is proved. Of course they will make a official case out of that and Bertram seems to be pretty sure that we´ll get a part of the court here in California, where all CBI evidence will be heard then. But Bertram says, that you must deliver a stone-hard proof that the Realgar is really out of the hotel bay and that it was not an error of the testing lab. And you have to be sure that the local test lab is clean – or that one of them is also bribed, to keep up that cover up.«

»Good point, Rigs.« Lisbon said. »Yes, this could be a gap for them to escape. If they blame the institute to send them wrong data they could deny the knowledge of that poison and start to accuse one another, and in the end no one was it. But Cho and Van Pelt are already there, I am awaiting their call too. Second thing: What did Bertram say when you told him that the locals are with that cover-up and that they tried to kill us?«

»He just sighed and said that he´ll talk with the PD in Honolulu to take over. You should contact them too tomorrow, ere you make the catch. He says you must take them all at once, let no one escape. I´ll talk to Mr. Terrence Wilder tomorrow.«

Lisbon decided: »Fine. We´ll call again tomorrow.«

It was in this moment, only a second ere they could disconnect the line, when Cho and Van Pelt entered the visitors room of the hospital. »Rigsby, stay in line.« Lisbon said and turned to the others: »Tell us what you found out.«

Cho said: »The scientists who work in the laboratory are very trustworthy persons, also the head of the institute. They work close together with the government and they kept small water probes of every testing in their file-storage. They started to test it again and were very shocked when they compared the water they got from the hotel bay and the probes we presented them. They could prove with almost one-hundred percent certainty that our water probe was from the same spot than the others – the chemistry of the sea water is almost the same, with one exception, the existence of the traces of Realgar. But soon we had our suspect. It was the collector of the probes, and as soon as we called for him to make a statement, he tried to flee in a short-circuit reaction.«

Van Pelt continued: »This man really is a weak person, easy to influence. Once we had him in questioning, he accepted the deal we offered him. He will tell his story in front of the court and we´ll try to see this as an act of self-reproach and extenuating circumstances. He told us that the hotel manager of the _Sunset Horizon Resort_ offered him free meals and drinks when he was there, and that they were so friendly to let the pool boy take the water probes for him while he was relaxing. He confirmed that he never went to the Hot Springs Bay for the last three testing's, but the water had some sulphuric stench so he believed them and took the other probes. He was really, earnestly shocked when he heard that he was used to cover up a Realgar deposit.«

»Of course his lack of knowledge can´t be an excuse.« Cho added. »He will be accused too, but he´s really credulous, close to be naive. He promised to be in court because he knows that his situation won´t get better if he tries to flee.«

Lisbon looked at all the persons that were in the room. Mrs. Wilder, Mr. de Palmer, Mr. Valliant, Jane, Cho and Van Pelt. Then she said: »We have a long night before us. We´ve got to collect all statements and write them down, Mrs. Wilder, Mr. de Palmer, I think it is time to call your attorneys. If you want, we´ll offer you a lawyer too, Mr. Valliant. All of you, be prepared for a big process at the court, because as soon as we start to reveal the truth, there will be much more accusations of the hotel guest who were betrayed and brought into danger by the cover-up. The CBI will offer all the evidence to you but you must take the lead to institute the legal proceedings. Tomorrow we´ll take down the manager and the associates at the hotel and the local police, but they will be under arrest at the Hawaiian law enforcement. We will be there to make our statements in front of court as soon as the process has gone that far. But our investigations are ended.«

Mrs. Wilder had tears in her eyes and stood up, ere she said: »Thank you so much for your work, Agent Lisbon. I know if you wouldn´t have come here, this whole story would never have been revealed. You did good work and I will personally thank your director for sending us your good team.«

»I thank you for this praise, Mrs. Wilder. But this is our job and no one of us would be content if we couldn´t do it properly.« She pointed to the door with a move of her head and the other Agents and Jane stood up. »We´ll meet tomorrow as soon as we got the arresting, then we´ll check on the last details, before we return to Sacramento. Stay with your daughter and tell her that we do everything to catch the persons who did this to her. I am sure she´ll understand, even if she´s not awake.«

»I will do.« Mrs. Wilder said. »Good bye.«

»Good bye.« the Agents replied, and left the room.


End file.
